


i'm falling and i got to preach it

by flyler



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, b99-esque au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 14:32:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15172739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyler/pseuds/flyler
Summary: when alex and maggie became friends, they'd joke they wouldn't date each other even if they were the last lesbians on earth.now, both of them deeply regret it.an AU based off of brooklyn 99 (you don't need to have seen the show to read!)





	i'm falling and i got to preach it

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is the longest work of fanfiction i've ever written and i'm super proud! the beginnings of this started july 2017, almost exactly a year ago, but i actually wrote most of this in the past week or so, so it turns out if you put your best foot forward, you can finish anything.
> 
> something to consider: kara is not an alien, but j'onn is. i'd written a hefty amount by the time i realized that's a little weird, but i didn't want to go in and change 20,000 words when it seems to flow nicely anyway. also! i've hidden plenty of brooklyn 99 easter eggs in here, so if you've seen the show, see if you can spot them!
> 
> enjoy!

When Maggie Sawyer was 27 years old, she was promoted to a detective of the National City Police Department and transferred to the 99th precinct, otherwise known as the Science Division.

 

Well known for her pro-alien stance, Maggie was excited. Maggie had intensively researched the captain, Hank Henshaw, who was almost as passionate as Maggie was on giving aliens the rights they deserved, and Maggie had a feeling the rest of the squad would, also.

 

On her first day, Captain Henshaw meets Maggie at the front desk on the first floor.

 

“Our main offices are on the third floor,” Henshaw says. “I figured I would have you meet the rest of the crew first.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Maggie says, and she follows Captain Henshaw up the stairs.

 

After a few minutes of shaking hands and trying to remember names, this is what Maggie is able to read from the situation:

 

Kara Danvers: Has been here for around a year, now. Sunny personality, but Maggie doesn’t think it comes from naivety. She knows what it’s like to be optimistic by choice. Her grip was strong, and her desk had dozens of food wrappers on them. Surprisingly enough, none of them seemed like they’d been sitting there for more than a day or two.

 

James Olsen: The sergeant. He’s been here for several years, the oldest member of the squad. Nice, attractive, and charismatic. The exact type of man Maggie would force herself to crush on in middle school, but now, Maggie just sees the possibility of a good coworker and friend.

 

Winn Schott: Has only been here for a few months (Maggie feels a little more relaxed at this, knowing she’s not the only newbie. Apparently the Science Division can have a big turnover. Considering the hours and most of the victims involved, Maggie isn’t surprised). A bit of a mess, and his hair looks like it’s never met a comb, but Maggie gets strong little brother vibes from him.

 

Lucy Lane: Not an officer, but a civilian consultant and also Henshaw’s personal assistant. But Maggie also caught her filming when Winn miscalculated how close his chair was to his ass and fell on it, so Maggie has a feeling Lucy is no work, all play. But when they shook hands, Lane mentioned how she used to be a practicing lawyer before coming to the precinct, so maybe the woman is more of enigma than Maggie originally thought. Definitely got some gay or bi vibes from her, too.

 

But, you see, Maggie hadn’t met _everyone_ yet.

 

“Hey, guys?” Winn points up to the clock that rests at the front of the open floor bullpen. “It’s 9:02. Alex isn’t here.”

 

There’s a hush among the coworkers, and Winn looks at Maggie. “Alex is _always_ on time, if not ten minutes early.”

 

“I have no idea what it could be,” Kara says. “She hasn’t texted me or anything.”

 

“Maybe her alarm didn’t go off,” James suggests.

 

“All three of them?” Lucy shakes her head. “Come on, take this seriously.”

 

“Oh!” Winn says. “Maybe she was taken in her sleep.”

 

Kara’s eyes widen and Lucy says, “ _That’s_ more like it! Way more reasonable than James’s idiotic alarm story.”

 

“Maybe she just… tucked herself in too tight and she’s still stuck. And she can’t reach her phone.” Kara pushes up her glasses, a nervous tick. “I don’t think she’d ever let herself get taken in her sleep.”

 

“I’ll give you that.” Lucy turns her head. “What about you? What do you think?”

 

Maggie looks at Captain Henshaw and back at Lucy before she realizes Lucy had been asking _her_. “Me? I just got here five minutes ago. I don’t even know who Alex is.”

 

“You still have to guess.”

 

“Um, okay.” Maggie thinks for a second. “I think… she was in line… at the bank.”

 

“Yawn!” Lucy throws her hands up. “All good guesses, except for the ones that sucked. They were still all wrong. She clearly slipped through a subway grate and is having terrible sex with a mole man.”

 

By the rolling eyes of everyone and the fact that the Captain hasn’t called Lucy out, Maggie has the idea that Lucy says things like this frequently.

 

Right then, the elevator dings and a woman runs out, seemingly out of breath. Her work outfit matches Maggie’s to a dime: a button up tucked into dark skinny jeans, a leather jacket, and Doc Martens.

 

She looks naturally grumpy, Maggie thinks, but like a pit bull. Definitely scary, but also a little cute.

 

“Danvers,” Henshaw comments. “You’re late.”

 

Maggie’s eyebrows knit together. Hadn’t she just met Danvers?

 

“Older sister,” Henshaw comments, seeing Maggie’s confused expression.

 

“How dare you, Alex? Why are you late? We’ve been worried sick about you!” Lucy motions to all of the precinct. “Care you explain yourself?”

 

“I’m just,” Danvers, the Alex one, checks her watch, “three minutes late. It’s no big deal, okay?”

 

“Alex,” Henshaw states. “Just explain.”

 

The woman slouches. “There was a problem at the bank.”

 

“Hot damn, Maggie!” Winn says, and he clasps Maggie on the back. “You were right! That’s crazy!”

 

“Wait.” Alex points at Maggie. “Who’s this?”

 

“Maggie Sawyer,” Henshaw says. “She’s your new partner.”

 

Partner? Okay, Maggie didn’t know that. She’d be fine, though.

 

Alex, on the other hand, gets even moodier. “Seriously, Captain?” She crossed her arms. “I don’t need a partner.”

 

“After Matthews was demoted to giving out parking violations, the board has decided that you _do_ need one.”

 

“I really don’t need someone trailing behind me as I do the job I can do just as well alone. Couldn’t this have happened on any other day? I’ve already had a bad one as it is.” Alex turns to see Maggie, hands on hips. “No offense… um, Sawyer, right?”

 

“Some taken,” Maggie says, and as Alex starts to walk away, Maggie follows, arms in the air exasperatedly. “You don’t even know me!”

 

“Look.” Alex stops and pivots on her heel, causing Maggie to stop, but not in time. Her chest collides right with the palm Alex had stuck out, and Alex takes it back, a slight blush on her face that she’d rather rip her fingernails out than admit to. “I’m not doubting _you_ , okay? Just, I took the benefit of the doubt for my last partner, and he was an idiot. The type to mislabel weapons, misspell easy words in paperwork, that type of shit. I had to pick up after him and do twice the work. You want to show me you can be my partner? Prove it.”

 

Maggie narrows her eyes. “Fine. I will.”

 

―――――

 

The real chance to prove to Alex Maggie wasn’t a two-brain celled idiot didn’t come up until the second week they were partners. The first week, though, Maggie gets a glimpse of who Alex is.

 

She’s sarcastic, and rude, and she’s incredibly stubborn, but Maggie also sees a nicer side when it comes to the precinct, her sister Kara in particular. Once or twice, they arrive to work together.

 

It’s a Thursday. They’re dealing with the robbery of an electronics store.

 

“Okay, so the store was hit about two hours ago?” Alex flips open her notepad and looks at the owner of the store, who’s nodding. “And they took mostly laptops, tablets, cameras―”

 

Alex’s questions are interrupted by a mamba beat echoing throughout the store, and she whips her head around quickly enough to see Maggie sheepishly turning a keyboard off.

 

“Sorry, hit that by accident. Continue.”

 

“I’ll need a list of employees and anyone else who had access to the entrances of your store. I’d also like to apologize for my _partner_ ,” Alex spits out the word ‘partner’ like it’d died in her mouth a month ago, and Maggie tried not to outwardly cringe, “her parents didn’t give her enough attention.”

 

Maggie knows Alex has a resting bitch personality and is grumpy by nature, but, yeah, that hits close to home. “Alex, I’ll have you know I’ve already solved the case.”

 

Alex raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms. “Pray tell.”

 

“We're looking for three white males, one of whom has sleeve tats on both arms.”

 

“And how would you know that?”

 

Maggie walks to a certain corner of the store where a teddy bear is resting. She flips it to reveal a camera stuffed inside it. “Got here five minutes before you did, and figured there’d be at least one working camera in the store. A nanny cam.”

 

After they’ve arrested the perps and put them in holding, Maggie goes to the break room to grab a cup of yogurt. Alex is there, sipping a cup of coffee and watching as Maggie grabs her snack. Maggie’s about to leave when Alex calls out, “Wait.”

 

When Maggie stops, Alex walks towards her. “I want to apologize for being a dick for the past week. I’d told you about the partner I’d had, right? He wasn’t just an idiot I had to work with, he’d dumped my sister and she was an absolute mess. I had to work with him for another three months before the higher ups realized he shouldn’t be out there arresting people for a living. He was a terrible cop, and an even worse boyfriend. Because of him, I always had a ton of drama going on at work. I guess… I guess I wanted you to dislike me because I wanted to avoid that drama.”

 

Maggie nods. “I get that. The insults, though? They’ve got to stop.”

 

Alex nods, her expression sobering. “Yeah. I think I was just so worried about this partnership being what I had last time, _I_ ended up being the dick. But I promise to shape up. I don’t do too well with partners, but I’m beginning to think we make a pretty good team.” She holds her hand out. “Truce?”

 

They shake. Alex’s grip is strong. And from that day on, things changed.

 

Because here’s the thing: when they start working together, it’s more than a pretty good team they make― try fucking fantastic one. It’s natural how they always seem to know what the other is thinking, or complete the sentence if the other one is on the top of their tongue.

 

Alex is always asking Maggie if she wants to hang out outside of work. Maggie wouldn’t find it odd, except they _have_ hung outside of work. Maggie’s gone to a few nights at the bar with the main crew after a shift, or even a game night at Kara’s apartment one time.

 

It’s not until three months into her and Alex patching up their partnership, and Lucy making a crack that Alex’s love life is nonexistent because she hasn’t come to terms with being a lesbian yet, does Maggie wonder.

 

One day, when Alex suggests they go to lunch together and Maggie agrees, does she say, “I’m honored, you know; it’s like you have a crush on me.”

 

Alex stops in her tracks, and she looks at Maggie with a serious expression. “I’m not gay.”

 

Maggie shrugs. “Never said you were. But, hey, I’ve turned straight girls gay before. You wouldn’t be the first.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes. “Don’t keep your hopes up.”

 

Weeks later, when Alex walks in with one of the receptionists for one of the non-emergency hotlines and kisses her on the cheek before walking into work, Maggie has to call bullshit.

 

And when Alex looks like a deer in the headlights at Maggie’s told-you-so expression, she knows she’s been caught.

 

―――――

 

It’s a few days later when the conversation comes up. They’re in the breakroom, eating a quick lunch, and they’re alone.

 

“So,” Maggie says, “maybe you _are_ gay.”

 

“I…” Alex shrugs. “Lucy’s joked about it sometimes. But then your little comment. I dunno. My parents… they’ve always had such high expectations of me. And we adopted Kara when she was 13. Because of that, I was always the one that was disciplined, that was berated if I didn’t match the impossibilities it seemed they wanted. Not to the point of it being abuse or anything, but… I had to be the perfect daughter, perfect sister, and then I made sure I was the perfect detective. For that, I needed the perfect grades, I needed to be in perfect shape… When my dating life lacked, I just assumed it was because it was low on my priority list. I didn’t think…” She scoffs, and tucks a piece of loose hair behind her ear. “But, yeah. You, Lucy, the whole world, probably. You were right. I told Kara last night. She wasn’t too surprised.”

 

“Pretty daring of you to already have a girlfriend in the few weeks you’ve known, though,” Maggie says. “That’d solid.”

 

“Oh, you mean Maria?” Alex shakes her head. “That only lasted a few days. I, um, take the back elevator now to avoid the hotline room.”

 

“Or maybe…” Maggie comes up to Alex and pokes her on the sternum accusingly. “I was right. You have a little baby crush on me.”

 

And Alex freezes. What’s she supposed to say? That Maggie’s right, Alex _does_ have a crush on her? That maybe even those first few weeks of a rough patch were some version of the playground bully pulling a girls’ pigtails? Because Maggie has that cocky smirk, her dimples deep enough to drown in, and it’s definitely hot, but it’s also incredibly infuriating, and that part of Alex wins. She is _not_ going to let Maggie go along thinking she was _all_ right, and Alex knows the crush will fade at some point.

 

“What? No, of course not!” Alex exaggerates a snort. “No, I just… like I said, it was a combination of things. If you were involved, it’s because you were open enough about it that it opened my eyes just that much more. And then I was watching some award show and realized how attractive America Ferrera is. Don’t give yourself too much credit, Sawyer.”

 

Maggie raises an eyebrow.

 

“I’m serious.” Alex cools her tone, ignoring her racing heartbeat. “Not if you were the last lesbian on Earth.”

 

“Ouch.” Maggie feigns hurt and presses a flat palm against her chest and then laughs. “Okay, okay. It’s just, it’s not the first time I’ve been a lesbian awakening, y’know.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m telling you. Keep your ego in your pants.”

 

“Hey! I’m attractive and whatnot. The last lesbian on Earth, though… that’s funny. Our first inside joke. See? We don’t have to hate each other.”

 

“I don’t hate you. We had a truce.”

 

“Good! Here’s to a good friendship.”

 

Maggie raises the cup of soda she’d gotten from the fast food restaurant she’s eating from, and clinks it with Alex’s coffee cup. The engine to the metaphorical car starts, and the long journey ahead of them begins.

 

―――――

 

It takes a few years, but Alex slowly becomes confident in herself. Sometimes, when she swaggers into the precinct, aviators perched on top of her head and coffee in hand, Maggie sees her influence, the way having an out lesbian as a best friend makes it easier for one to become more comfortable in their own skin.

 

Other times, Maggie thinks about how hot Alex is. She buries that deep in her thoughts, burying her head in the sand so she can keep living in denial. Because Alex is her _best friend_ , and Maggie can get practically any woman in the world to be with her if she truly desired it― so why go after the one woman she knows doesn’t like her like that?

 

(She gets closer to the others, too. Winn is like a little brother to her. She and James regularly go to the precinct’s provided basement gym together, and swap healthy recipes they think the other would enjoy. She learns almost six months in that Captain Henshaw is actually J’onn J’onzz, a Green Martian and the last of his kind, but everyone calls him Henshaw to avoid suspicion.)

 

But Alex? Not if she was the last lesbian in the world, she had said. And, at the time, Maggie had thought the same, thinking it was nice that she could have a lesbian as a best friend without all the drama that would usually follow.

 

But, now, it just taunts her. Maggie hadn’t realize she’d even fallen; she’d just realized her ass was sitting on the tile floor one day, and she still remembers the day she looked up to realize she was a goner.

 

They’d just solved a case. Alex was getting a number from one of the EMTs on the scene, as there hadn’t been any casualties for them to attend to. Alex had been smiling, and laughing. Alex doesn’t get attention from women a lot― well, scratch that, she definitely does, but she rarely ever reciprocates. Maggie, a workaholic with low relatively self-esteem herself, gets not wanting to be romantically vulnerable, but when she sees Alex take the tiny piece of paper with the number and slip it into her pocket, something clenches in Maggie’s stomach.

 

She instantly realizes what that feeling is, and fuck, really, it just gets worse from there.

 

―――――

 

Maggie broke her phone while chasing a man who robbed alien households for parts.

 

Well, at least, that’s how she tells the story. She had actually broken it after the robber had been arrested, tripping on the curb on the way to the squad car and landing on her ass.

 

Alex is the only one who knows.

 

“I don’t want to get a new phone,” Maggie pouts as she and Alex walk back into the bullpen. Maggie’s ass still feels stiff, and she knows there are gonna be a rainbow of bruises in a few days. “All my stuff will be wiped. Are you sure it’s broken?”

 

“Maggie, your phone is so spider-webbed it doesn’t even look like a phone anymore,” Alex says. “And don’t you use iCloud?”

 

“And let the government see my private information?” Maggie says. “And more importantly, my nudes?”

 

Alex balks at that, leaving room for Winn, who had been filling out paperwork, to chime in. “Maggie’s right. As you can see, I’ve painted the camera over my computer so they can’t see what I’m doing.” He gestures to his desktop, a tiny spot of what seems to be office white-out brushed over the top of the monitor.

 

“What are you doing at work that’s so terrible?” Alex asks. “And why not use tape? That’s government property. You destroyed it. You’ll have to pay for that.”

 

“Hey guys!” The elevator opens and Kara bursts into the room, holding a box of donuts. “Who wants food?”

 

“No thanks,” Maggie says, “I’m going to go grab a cup of my yogurt from the fridge.”

 

“Wait, that was your yogurt?” Winn’s teasing tone quickly changes into panicky when Maggie glares at him so threateningly he cries out, “It was a joke! I was joking, I’d never eat your yogurt!”

 

“Damn right,” Maggie mutters, leaving to head to the break room fridge, inside, a stack of variously flavored, dairy free yogurt cups with paper that has “MAGGIE’S YOGURT. DO NOT TOUCH UNLESS THE LAST THINGS YOU WANT TO SEE ARE HER FISTS” written in an angry red marker with Maggie’s small-caps scrawl.

 

Alex is halfway through her (first) donut before remembering. “Maggie, you still have to get a new phone!”

 

“Hey, squad!” The low timbre of James Olsen’s voice rings through the open floor. “Boss wants a quick meeting.”

 

Everyone grumbles, walking into the room where they usually hold their meetings. Considering it was halfway through the day, there were only a few possibilities of what their captain, Captain Henshaw (J’onn when backs were turned), would need to say. Usually, it was someone in another district who didn’t want to handle their alien cases and bringing them to the one district that was considered alien friendly, and they would take them on because of they didn’t, who would?

 

Perks of being District 99.

 

“Team,” Henshaw starts as everyone gets settled in, standing at the podium for their weekly morning meeting, “There seems to be another attempted break-in into L Corp, early this morning, around 9 A.M. I know it’s not in our district, but no one in the seven-four wants to take it. Any volunteers?”

 

“Me!” Kara’s hand is raised enthusiastically. “Lena and I are friends. I can take care of this.”

 

“She likes your posts on Instagram,” Alex says. “That’s not really friendship.”

 

“It is when Lena only follows 28 people.”

 

“Who wouldn’t like posts of food and Kara working out, and cute dogs, and Kara working out?” Lucy asks. “I know a thirsty gal when I see one.”

 

Kara blushes, and Alex whips around to glare at Lucy. “Keep it in your pants, Lane.”

 

“Hey, my appreciation for Kara ends aesthetically. I can’t take that sunshine personality when it comes to romance, you know? We’re just not compatible. I like the wild ones.” Lucy gives a wink.

 

“James is wild?” Alex asks, deadpan.

 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

 

“Maggie,” James, who’s standing besides Captain Henshaw, gives an awkward cough. “You need to get a new phone. Alex told me to say it here so you’d, quote, ‘wear your big girl pants’, unquote, and get one.”

 

“I don’t _need_ a new phone,” Maggie says. “I’ll figure out how to fix the one I have.”

 

“No you won’t!” Lucy cries out. “If it takes you more than five hours to fix your phone, our 200 plus snap streak will be over, and my longest streak will be with Winn. I can _not_ have that.” She glares at Maggie. “You’re _getting_ a new phone, even if I have to drag you into the Apple store myself.”

 

“You won’t need to do that,” Alex says. “Maggie and I will go buy one while on patrol today. Right, Maggie?”

 

“I guess,” Maggie grumbles.

 

Later that day, as Maggie fumbles with her new phone, Alex is watching what she deems to be a suspicious-looking guy walk into the restaurant that they’re supposed to be meeting a double agent to discuss a notorious alien weapons supplier, Maxwell Lord.

 

“Maggie, I may have spotted our guy,” she says.

 

“Just a sec. I want to have a new lock screen but all of the default ones are boring.” Maggie sighs. “Should I take a picture of something?”

 

“Maggie,” Alex warns.

 

“What? Thirty seconds won’t hurt! It’s not like he’s a suspect. We’re just meeting him for a nice lunch.” Getting an idea, Maggie switches to her camera app and snaps a picture of Alex glaring at her. “Perfect.”

 

“Really? You’re gonna make me your phone lock screen?”

 

“Why not?” Maggie taps her phone a few times, and then shows it to Alex. “It’s cute. Your grumpy face is cute.”

 

“Whatever. Grab your stuff.”

 

(They get back in the car, not successful (the double agent had cancelled at the last minute), when Maggie’s phone chimes.

 

“Oops,” she says, opening her phone. “Guess I forgot to turn the sound off for Tindr.”

 

“Really?” Alex sighs. “During work?”

 

“I just said it was an accident!” Maggie says. “Not like you’re jealous or anything.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Yes, I know. What was it you said to me when you realized you were gay… what, three years ago?”

 

“I said, ‘Not if you were the last lesbian on Earth.’ I still mean it.” Alex does not. In fact, she never really did.

 

“See? That’s what’s so great about us, Danvers. We’re just two lesbians platonically being friends. None of that romance drama to worry about… now, I’m just gonna quickly swipe right, and―”

 

“No.” Alex takes Maggie’s phone and slides it into her back pocket. “You’re gonna drive us back to the station.”)

 

―――――

 

“Alex?” Kara asks, that night in their apartment. “You good?”

 

“Fine.” Alex is looking at Pinterest on her laptop (Kara doesn’t understand why she doesn’t just download the app, as it’s _ten times easier_ ), glasses perched on her nose. “Why?”

 

“You had four donuts today. And then, when we got home, you started gorging on ice cream.”

 

“And?”

 

“You’re a stress eater, dummy,” Kara points out. “What’s the matter?”

 

“It’s… not important.” Alex continues to click away.

 

Kara gets a knowing look on her face, flopping down on the couch next to her sister. “Really? You can’t tell me, your adorable and understanding sister, what the matter is?”

 

“It’s just…” Alex sighs, placing her open laptop at the coffee table. “Maggie downloaded Tindr the second she got her new phone, and notifications were going off. A lot. And I can’t help but feel…”

 

“Jealous because you’re head over heels in love with her?” Kara finishes.

 

Alex’s eyes widen a fraction at the “L” word. It sounds to severe, too real. “I don’t know if I’d go that far, but, yeah, I like her more than I’d like a friend, I guess.”

 

“Congrats!” Kara says, and hugs Alex quickly before leaning back into her original position. “You’re only the second-to-last person to figure it out.”

 

“”Okay, no, it doesn’t count as me being second-to-last when I was ignoring it. I technically already knew.”

 

“I mean, sure, but everyone still knows. Except Maggie.” Kara starts counting on her fingers. “Me, Mom, Lucy, J’onn, James, Winn…”

 

“Dammit,” Alex sighs. “ _Winn_?”

 

“That’s because you’ve got it _baaad_.” Kara pokes Alex on the nose playfully and then pushes up her glasses (her own glasses, not her sister’s). “But that’s okay, ‘cause Maggie does, too.”

 

Alex snorts, going back to her laptop. “Yeah, right. She’s probably on some date with a hot chick, and I’m sitting here looking at recipes for pasta. You know our saying, Kara.”

 

“That weird ‘last lesbian on Earth’ thing? Yeah, you said that when you had just realized you were a lesbian, years ago, when Maggie had only been working at the precinct for a few months. You were barely friends then.”

 

“Yeah,” Alex sighs, “Maybe, I guess.”

 

Kara catches the tone in Alex’s voice. “You didn’t.”

 

“What was I supposed to do? We’d been hanging out, and it was after I had talked to you, I told her that I thought I was gay. And she got that cocky grin, you know, the one she gets because she thinks she’s god’s gift to women, and she was all, ‘Is it me? Do you have a crush on me?’ So I panicked, and was honestly kinda mad. I didn’t want to fuel to her pretentious fire. I said no, not if she was the last lesbian on Earth.”

 

“But she was right.”

 

At this point, Alex slams her laptop shut, placing it as angrily on the table as one could place a two thousand dollar piece of equipment. “Of course she was! She’s beautiful, smart, funny, _and_ tough. The whole damn package. How could it _not_ be because of her? But now she’s my best friend now, Kara, and we pride ourselves in being able to be _just friends_. I actually thought for a while I didn’t like her anymore, y’know? A few months after I told Maggie, I convinced myself I didn’t like her anymore. I went on dates and enjoyed myself. But they always crumbled, because it was never _just_ right, and every time I’d just realize it’s because I can’t get over her. My feelings are ruining everything. I can’t tell her, Kara. It’s been too long. It’s years later, now. I don’t want to lose her.”

 

Kara purses her lips, keeping her mouth shut, choosing to comfort her sister by letting Alex lean onto her and cry. While everyone in the precinct can see a slowburn cop romance waiting to happen, Alex and Maggie seem to be purposefully keeping themselves in the dark.

 

―――――

 

“Hello, friends!” Maggie strides into the bullpen on a groggy and probably-going-to-rain Thursday morning. She walks past Winn who had been getting something from the printer, and ruffled his hair before going into the lounge to presumably get her morning cup of yogurt.

 

Standing on his tiptoes to make sure Maggie was still scrummaging in the fridge, Winn beelines to Kara and takes a seat on the edge of her desk. “Is she okay?” he asks, his forehead wrinkling. “She didn’t even insult me in that older sister slash younger brother way.”

 

“What’s wrong with Maggie?” Alex pops up from her mountain of paperwork (all stacked neatly, all color coded, all in the neatest chicken scratch her “I changed my majors sophomore year from pre-med to criminal justice” handwriting could muster).

 

“Nothing,” Winn says. “That’s the problem.”

 

Alex gives Winn an incredulous look. “So… something’s wrong with Maggie because there’s nothing wrong with her?”

 

“It’s just…” Winn puts the length of his index finger against his top lip, in thought. “She’s kind of a grouch. Not in a bad way,” he adds, before Alex can speak over him, “I just mean… her disposition isn’t usually so sunny, like, say, Kara. She’s cool, collected, authoritative. And just then it seemed like she was vibing her inner Kara.”

 

“Maggie’s not as sunny as Kara, but to be fair, no one else I’ve met really is,” Alex says. The topic of discussion smiles at the attention before cramming her third donut of the day into her mouth in a single bite. (One has to wonder if her jaw can unhinge, and considering she didn’t come into Alex’s house until Alex had started high school, Alex wouldn’t scratch the idea that Kara was raised by a bunch of snakes.) “But still, Maggie’s… not a grouch. She can be sunny if she wants!”

 

“Yeah,” Kara snorts, “if she _wants_. Usually only to you.”

 

“That’s not true,” Alex says, and because she knows what Kara is going to insinuate next, she follows up with, “And don’t talk with your mouth full, that’s gross.”

 

Kara just gives Alex her signature _You don’t want to admit you two should be a couple!_ look while Alex narrows her eyes and slinks back into her chair.

 

“What’s that look mean?” Winn asks.

 

“What look?” Maggie seems to appear out of thin air behind Winn, holding a cup of yogurt.

 

“Nothing!” Alex says, way too quickly for it to be the truth.

 

Maggie cocks her head (Kara’s mind thinks of at least three gifs of confused puppies it could match). “Okay then, Miss Grumpypants. I’m going to my desk if anyone needs me!”

 

When Maggie is too far away to hear quiet chitchat, Alex hums. “I guess she seems _slightly_ more peppy than usual.”

 

Winn throws his hands in the air, as if to say, “Told ya!”, and then leaps off Kara’s desk to get back to his own.

 

A few hours later, Maggie is having her way with a hoagie from a food truck half a block from the precinct when Alex walks past her.

 

“Wow,” Lucy says, reclining back into her office chair. “Get a room, you two.”

 

“It took me twenty minutes out of my half an hour lunch break to wait in line for my food, Lane, so joke all you want,” Maggie says after swallowing a huge bite.

 

“Hey, Maggie.” Winn pops his head out of one of the hallways. “Can you help me with a lineup? Scary Maggie always works to help the perp confess.”

 

“Sure,” Maggie says. “I love Scary Maggie. She just says what’s on regular Maggie’s mind.”

 

(Cut to: Maggie standing in the middle of Winn’s lineup to help with a petty robbery case, channeling all of her anger and exhaustion from the past few weeks to make it seem like no amount of emotional should feasibly come out of such a tiny body.

 

“THIS IS TAKING TOO LONG!” she’ll scream. “I’M GONNA MISS THE FARMER’S MARKET!”)

 

―――――

 

The next day, Maggie comes in just as cheery as the day before.

 

“Okay, something is _definitely_ up,” Winn says. “Two days in a row? Not to mention it’s raining outside, so it can’t be the weather.”

 

“What do you think it is?” Kara asks.

 

Alex answers with a, “There’s nothing wrong with Maggie! She’d have told me.”

 

Lucy, overhearing, swaggers over to them. “The problems, ladies and Winn,” she says, using the crown of Winn’s head as a temporary armrest, “is that you’re only thinking _negatively_. Be positive! She probably just had some good sex.”

 

Kara sputters, Winn shoves Lucy’s pointy elbow off his head, and Alex gets too deep into thought for it to be considered platonic.

 

“Detectives?” Captain Henshaw stops his morning peruse around the precinct. “Everything alright?”

 

“We’re good!” “Everything’s fine!” (Alex, still in deep thought about Maggie and a sex life, is currently unavailable for a response at the moment.) “We’re just discussing Maggie’s sex life.”

 

Everyone, including Alex, who had snapped out of her thoughts at the comment, glare at Lucy. “What? Being honest and direct is the best way to go.”

 

“Well…” Captain Henshaw gets a look on his face that states _I’d rather be talking about anything else right now_ , says, “don’t discuss that, and get back to work.”

 

A few minutes later, everyone having scrambled back to their spots to fill out paperwork or fill out something on their computer, Maggie comes back. “What’d I miss?”

 

Lucy, who had not been included in the “everyone” that was working, pipes up, “Get some!”

 

Maggie shoots Lucy a pair of finger guns before sitting down at her desk.

 

“Wait a minute,” Alex says, quietly enough to only be at herself. Maggie’s desk sits back-to-back from her desk, and she leans over, “You got some?”

 

Maggie shrugs. “Yeah, but it’s not super serious, so I didn’t really think to say anything.”

 

Alex raises her eyebrows, and begins to lie her way through her feelings. “Oh? You can’t tell your best friend when you get some action?” _I hate it when I have to hear about your sex life, but I’m actually kind of offended you didn’t tell me._

 

“I’ll tell you next time, then. You can tell me, too, then.”

 

“Okay, I will, then.” _I’ve only had meaningless one night stands since we’ve met and none of them have been with you, but I’ll do my best._

 

“Cool beans, then.”

 

“Good.” _Fuck._

 

“You know,” Kara says, from the other side of the room, to Winn, “for two of the best detectives in the nine-nine, they’re pretty shit at realizing they like each other.”

 

“You better keep your voice down,” Winn says, not looking up from his typing. “I bet they’d get together in the fall, and it’s only spring. If they hear you, we’ll all owe Lucy, and knowing her, it won’t just be the cash in the pot. I’m still finding glitter on my body from the last bet she won.”

 

―――――

 

It’s mid-May when the rest of the crew meet Maggie’s girlfriend. Turns out, those one night stands had actually become something serious.

 

Alex is conflicted. She’s happy that Maggie has found someone, but there’s a deep, dark, green feeling in her gut because it’s not _her_ making Maggie happy. Well, in the romantic way. And the sexual way.

 

Anyway.

 

Every Memorial Day weekend, the precinct has a barbeque. This year, Winn is hosting it at his nicely-sized condo he got a lease on after winning a lawsuit that consisted of one (1) broken microwave, one (1) frozen burrito, and one (1) skin graft on his ass.

 

Donning his only apron, a Christmas-themed one he got in a game of white elephant a few years back, and a pair of tongs, Winn was fiddling with the ribs on the grill while Kara watched.

 

“Not even one?” Kara begs.

 

“No, and not even your puppy eyes will get you any. These are my prized ribs. I only put them on the grill about two hours ago. They’re nowhere near their prime.”

 

“Hasn’t stopped me before,” Kara mutters, and Winn shoos her inside where Alex and Lucy are bantering as they set up the cutlery.

 

“Winn kick you out?” Alex asks, and Kara crosses her arms.

 

There’s a knock and then the front door swings open, Maggie and an unknown woman standing beside her.

 

“Hey!” Maggie greets. “Sorry for being late, I had to pick up Madison.”

 

What Alex _wants_ to do: drop what she’s doing, leave, live in a cave, become a hermit.

 

What she does: “Oh, you’re Madison! Hey, I’m Alex.” Alex gives her hand up for Madison to shake, and she does, albeit tentatively. “We’re just setting up. Wanna help?”

 

“Sure,” Madison says, also tentatively.

 

Maggie leaves Madison with Alex and Lucy (and knowing them, Alex will make sure Lucy doesn’t say anything _too_ Lucy-like and out of hand to freak Madison out) to see Winn in the backyard.

 

“I have my spices and sauce in the car,” she says.

 

“Good! I put a little something on the ribs before they hit the grill, but your stuff is the bomb. Don’t let Kara see you holding it, or she’ll drunkenly chug it down again.”

 

“That was _one_ time!” Kara’s voice yells from inside.

 

Winn replies just as loudly with, “Stop eavesdropping!”

 

Maggie gets what she needs from the car and watches as Winn slow cooks his ribs. Knowing Winn, he’s already been at it for several hours. She’d stopped asking if he needed a breather the first year she participated in the annual barbeque; nothing makes Winn leave the grill, even Kara’s pants catching on fire after a sparkler war gone wrong.

 

So Maggie sits, and talks with Winn, because she knows it must get lonely, having no one to talk to.

 

Soon, everyone comes outside as the cooking meat starts to smell. James is in a lawn chair, reading a Home Decor magazine, while Kara and Lucy give each other a Western-style staredown, sparklers in hand.

 

“Going against me, Lane? All you’ll see is hell,” Kara says, circling.

 

Lucy follows Kara’s every move with her eyes. “I worked at a sunglasses kiosk in the mall for four years, so not only have I _been_ to hell, I was the assistant manager of it. Try me.”

 

Maggie feels arms wrapped around her waist, and she’s surprised to turn around and see Madison behind her (Why is she surprised? Who else had she been expecting?). “Hey, babe, Kara and I were thinking of swimming in the pool. Wanna join?”

 

Maggie glances over at Winn. “You good?”

 

“You’re great company, Maggie, but you should do what you want. James will keep my company.”

 

James looks up from his magazine at the mention of his name.

 

“Sure thing.” Maggie smirks. “Madison, wanna grab our suits?”

 

For the next while, Maggie watches as Kara asks Madison questions about her life. Not interrogating her by any means, but Kara is just simply curious, yet Madison answers each question a little awkwardly. Maggie tries to chip into the conversation, hoping Madison doesn’t feel too terribly.

 

One of Kara’s many questions is interrupted by a “Canonball!” and Lucy jumping into the deep end, splashing the others in the pool.

 

“Seriously, Lane?” Maggie says. “My hair frizzes when wet!”

 

“Die mad about it.”

 

“Lucy, you’ve gotten the concrete all wet.” Suddenly, Maggie sees Alex standing at the edge of the pool. Instead of looking at the way Alex’s bikini top and swim shorts show off her curves and the length of her legs, Maggie decides to pay attention to the cute pout she’s wearing on her face.

 

“Huh.” Lucy uses her top strength to push herself out of the pool and stand beside Alex as she drips onto the pavement. “Wanna know what would get it even wetter?”

 

“Wha―” Alex isn’t even able to finish guessing before Lucy’s grabbed ahold of her and jumped back into the pool, Alex having no choice but to follow.

 

Maggie snaps a picture of Alex when she surfaces, grumpy look to the max.

 

“You better delete that,” Alex warns.

 

“Why would I do that when this is perfect lock screen material?” Alex raises her hand to splash Maggie when Maggie holds her hands up. “Hey! This phone is still new! Don’t drown it!”

 

Later, when Winn has finished creating his masterpiece and everyone’s eating, they sit around a bonfire from a pit that had been built into Winn’s backyard. Alex and Lucy, having been the only ones who truly went underwater, took the longest to dry, and Maggie can’t help but notice how long Alex’s hair has gotten.

 

When Alex mentions not a few minutes later she needs a haircut, Maggie feels a chill run down her spine. She ignores it, and wraps her arm around Madison tighter as her girlfriend snuggles in deeper.

 

When Alex sees Maggie and Madison cuddling, she tries not to picture what it would be like to fall asleep in Maggie’s arms like that.

 

―――――

 

“Hey, Maggie. I can’t make lunch today. My source sprung a meeting on me.”

 

“That’s okay, Danvers. We eat all the time together. One time isn’t going to make me hate you.” Maggie clasps her hand on Alex’s shoulder in comradery and Alex discreetly steeles herself, she can make it, but then Maggie’s thumb instinctively rubs a single pathway across and maybe Alex is wearing a leather jacket and a shirt but she feels a direct hit to her veins and tries not to melt. Maggie smirks and raises an eyebrow in questioning, and Alex does her best to cool any features that might have slipped through. “I know how important this case is to you, okay? Don’t feel bad.”

 

“Yeah, um, yeah… okay. I won’t.” Alex, out of a combination of fear, embarrassment, and unlimited adoration for the pocket-sized detective standing in front of her, shoots a pair of fingers guns before heading out to meet the guy she’s been keeping in contact with for several months.

 

“God, I’m a fucking idiot,” she mutters, but she soon discards the layer of skin she’s in that consists of the self consciousness of onesided pining and the awkwardness that’s just Alex Danvers. She’s now Detective Danvers: one of the best of her kind, cool and suave and someone who will do anything to get justice served.

 

Her double agent’s name is Brian. An alien, a little shy and clumsy due to his home planet having a larger gravitational effect, but he’s a nice guy. Alex first got to know him a few days after she and Maggie had gone scouting that one day several months back, the same week Maggie’s phone had broke. He’d apologized profusely for not being able to show up. Maxwell Lord is extremely detailed in who he hires to work for him, it seems― and Brian just needs the money.

 

Alex gets it. She doesn’t blame Brian, she blames the big dog who feels the need to profit off of alien warfare.

 

Before going to the cafe they had agreed to meet at, Alex goes into a convenience store to use the restroom. In there, she quickly puts on a blonde wig and changes into a pink cardigan and blouse borrowed from Kara, and she slips on a pair of sunglasses.

 

It takes a moment for Brian to recognize her, but when he does, he waves her over enthusiastically. Alex just shakes her head. _This guy._

 

“Hey,” she says, but she doesn’t sit down. “Let me order first.”

 

He nods, and when she comes back, they discuss simple topics like the weather, and the car accident Supergirl helped with early in the morning.

 

“You know, I’ve been apartment hunting,” Brian comments.

 

“Oh?” Alex immediately knows Brian is about to share important information. In conversations like these, locations are used incredibly sparingly.

 

“Yeah, that new complex off 3rd and Boulevard… I was thinking of giving it a tour next week, maybe Wednesday?”

 

The rest of the meeting goes smoothly, and Alex has her information.

 

The second she walks through the gates of the bullpen, she makes a beeline for Henshaw’s office.

 

“Captain,” she says. “I have a lead.”

 

―――――

 

It’s a Sunday night. One of the slowest shifts of the precinct, and it’s covered by a completely different weekend squad, so everyone enjoys having a game night if plans are open, usually hosted at Kara and Alex’s apartment.

 

By the time Winn shows up with several boxes of pizza, Kara has already made her own dent in the takeout the sisters got.

 

“Thank you,” Alex mouths to Winn, taking his boxes to put on the table where the rest of the food is. “And Kara,” she says, out loud, “stop eating the food.”

 

“But I’m hungry!” Kara whines.

 

“Don’t care.”

 

James and Lucy come around ten minutes later, and Maggie comes with Madison not too long after. Everyone is starting to team up when the doorbell rings once more.

 

“Wait, who else is coming?” Alex asks.

 

“I invited someone,” Kara says, jogging towards the door and opening it. “Hey, Lena!”

 

“Lena _Luthor_?” Alex asks incredulously. “As in, Lex Luthor’s sister? As in, the Lex Luthor that almost _killed_ Clark?”

 

“Do you… know Clark?” Lena implores.

 

Alex is about to answer when Kara stops her, and looks at Lena, blushing. “I… yes, Clark Kent is my cousin.” Lena opens her mouth, but Kara continues. “But! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you presuming that I would bring that into this friendship. I don’t think you’re your brother, I swear! If I did, would I have invited you to game night?”

 

“I... guess you’re right.”

 

Kara introduces Lena to the crew (it also gives Madison a little refresher from the barbeque).

 

“Okay,” Kara says, dusting off her hands when she’s done. “Now that everyone’s here, we can get food, play games, and have a good time. The first game is Pictionary. Lena, we can be a team.”

 

“Kara,” Alex whines, “what about me?”

 

Kara raises an eyebrow but Winn quickly says, “You can be with me!”, and Alex nods, satisfied.

 

Turns out, Winn and Alex absolutely _crush_ at Pictionary. Both of them can’t draw at all― a kindergartener would beat them if this game was based purely on skill― but it seemed that their common lack of art skills had them in sync about what the crudely drawn symbols were supposed to represent.

 

“Wow,” Maggie says, the final round over, everyone still blinking in shock at how Winn and Alex wiped the board. “So, we’re all in agreement that those two never team up again?”

 

“What, Sawyer?” Alex asks. “Jealous Winn and I can be in tandem?”

 

Maggie snorts, and rolls her eyes.

 

“What should we play next?” Kara asks.

 

“Never Have I Ever!” Lucy cheers.

 

“That’s kind of cruel,” James says, “as we have _two_ newcomers tonight.”

 

“I don’t mind,” Lena says.

 

“Do you want to play?” Maggie says, and Alex notices how Maggie skirts her fingers around Madison’s waist. Sometimes, when they’re passing each other in the precinct, or they’re walking on the small sidewalks of the city discussing a case, Maggie will do the same with Alex. Alex wonders if Madison feels the same electricity she always does.

 

“I don’t mind,” Madison says, “but I don’t really feel like getting wasted.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Kara says, “we usually just drink hot chocolate or coffee, not alcohol,” and Alex relaxes a little bit, even though it’s hard with the girlfriend here, because she knows she’ll always have a family to care for her.

 

(She’d learned, too, that it wasn’t just for her. Winn’s father was an alcoholic, and James never found it entertaining for everyone to get blackout drunk because he was 6 feet of pure muscle and was usually the designated driver, and it’s kinda crazy how their small group weaves together like the yarn in a comfy sweater you save for rainy days.)

 

When the drinks have been brewed, everyone sits in a loose circle.

 

“I’ll start!” Kara says. “Never have I ever dyed my hair.”

 

Alex, Maggie, Lena, and Winn all take “shots” of their drink.

 

“Wait,” Alex says, “Lucy? You haven’t?”

 

“These highlights are all natural, baby.”

 

The next few questions are the same mood; Kara, James, and Winn have never gotten a speeding ticket. Madison and Lena never had a childhood pet, and Maggie is the only one to have never ridden on a rollercoaster (“Don’t you dare say a short comment,” right as Alex says, “You wouldn’t be able to unless you decided to wear stealthily-hidden stilettos.”)

 

Winn’s turn. “Never have I ever ridden on a motorcycle.”

 

Alex, Maggie, Lucy, James, and Lena all drink.

 

“Oh, Lena! I didn’t know you could drive a motorcycle,” Kara says. “That’s cool.”

 

“I can’t,” Lena says.

 

“Ah.” Kara fiddles with her glasses. “Sorry, then. Must’ve ridden with a boyfriend, then.”

 

“Nope.”

 

Maggie does a low whistle and James snickers. Kara blinks. “Wait, are you gay?”

 

“Are you just figuring this out?” Lena asks. “I’ve been flirting with you for the past six months.”

 

Kara sinks into the blanket wrapped around her.

 

“You guys can figure that out in private at another time,” Alex says. “It’s my turn. Never have I ever had to chase a perp wearing a costume.”

 

Everyone but Madison, Lucy, and Lena groan and take a drink.

 

“One day, Danvers, we’ll get you in a costume for Halloween. Then you’ll see.” Maggie playfully bumps Alex with her shoulder, and Alex blatantly stares at Maggie as she brushes her shoulder off. When Maggie’s phone buzzes, Alex glances a peek at it to see it’s a notification from the local news about some amber alert, but what catchers her eye is that Maggie’s lock screen photo has changed, yet it’s still a picture of Alex.

 

(The time they’d gone to an animal shelter after a flood, and Alex had an enormous and enthusiastic German shepherd mix jump on her with huge muddy paws. She didn’t even know Maggie had gotten a picture of her laughing when it happened.)

 

The next person to go is Lucy.

 

“Never have I ever had a sex dream about a coworker,” she says.

 

“That’s oddly specific,” Kara comments and she balks as Winn, Alex, Maggie, and Lena all take a sip of their drinks. “Oh, wow.”

 

Maggie looks at Alex, the unspoken questions ringing in both of their minds, and instead of saying anything, Alex downs the rest of her cup, and Kara decides to change the game.

 

―――――

 

Alex walks in at 8:30 that Monday morning, twenty minutes earlier than she usually does, and she sees Maggie already on her computer, typing away. She’s never understood how Maggie can get up so early. Mornings are the worst.

 

Winn is at Lucy’s desk, holding her phone.

 

“Is she crying?” Lucy asks. “How much is she crying?”

 

Winn looks squeamish. “A little.”

 

“A _little_?” Lucy grabs the phone and starts to yell into it. “You were just told I was dead! You should be _wailing_ , you stone cold bitch!” She slams the phone into its handset, hanging up. “Okay, Winn, call my other grandma."

 

Shaking her head, Alex walks into the captain’s office, she asks, “Any updates?” in lieu of a morning greeting.

 

“Danvers,” Henshaw says. “Sit down.”

 

Alex knows this isn’t good. She sits.

 

“There’s a high chance your source was correct, and the SWAT team is coordinating a raid for Wednesday night.”

 

“Okay, good,” Alex says. “When’s our call time?”

 

Henshaw grimaces. “We aren’t going to be there. That’s in six-four’s district, so their officers will be the ones on the scene.”

 

“Seriously?” Alex slouches and crosses her arms. “Stupid ass National City cops. They hate having to deal with alien cases until they get to be painted as heroes. _I_ did all the grunt work.”

 

“I’m sorry, Alex.” Alex looks up through her eyelashes to see J’onn, the precinct’s father figure, instead of Henshaw, the captain, looking back at her with the dark eyes of someone who _gets_ it. “This decision was higher than what I could control. You know if it was my choice, you’d be there.”

 

“I know.” Alex sighs, and gets up, hands pushing off her knees. “Can I go, sir?”

 

“Of course.”

 

When Maggie sees Alex walk out of Henshaw’s office looking crestfallen (Alex didn’t look any different to anyone who didn’t know her, but of course, Maggie _knows_ her) than before, Maggie rolls out of her desk and pushes her chair to reach Alex when Alex sits down. “You good, Danvers?”

 

Alex absentmindedly clicks her computer mouse to wake the machine up. “District six-four is going to be in charge of the raid I worked so hard for because it’s in their district.”

 

“Shit, that sucks.” Maggie purses her lips and tries to reach to her desk to grab the file that had been sitting on her unsolved pile for the past ten minutes, but her arms are too short, even if their desks are back to back. She sees Alex smirk as Maggie has to slowly roll back, and usually Maggie would come up with some sarcastic remark, but even if it’s her own troubles that manage to put a smile on Alex’s face, Maggie will take it.

 

“So.” Maggie holds the file up once she’s able to get to it. “I just got this a few minutes ago. How does solving a good old-fashioned murder sound to make you feel better?”

 

“You saying murder makes me happy?”

 

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Ha ha. Very funny. You know I just want to distract you.”

 

She stands up to walk over to Alex’s desk and lift her up by holding Alex’s hand and pulling. Alex schools her appearance, tries not to think about how she hadn’t even pushed herself up, Maggie had done all that with _one arm_ , pretends that when she stands to her full height Maggie’s nose isn’t inches from her lips, how one step in the wrong, or maybe _right_ , direction…

 

Alex takes a large step back, trying not to look down and look for lint on her soft scoop neck. “Sure, sounds fine.” She hopes her voice didn’t crack. She sees her leather jacket hanging over her chair and grabs it, hoping Maggie would think that’s why she stepped back.

 

Maggie smiles, then, dimples on full blast. “Let’s go, then.”

 

“So, here’s what weird about this. Robbery gone wrong to a guy named Morgenthau, local food importer, but he only stole a computer, a watch, and Jamon Iberico hams worth six thousand a pop.”

 

“Oh, I recognize those hams,” Alex says. “Kara gorged on them one time at our uncle’s funeral. Was constipated for days.”

 

Maggie wrinkles her face. “Gross. But, seriously, there’s still a flat screen in the apartment. Who would steal ham but not that?”

 

“Someone who knows the true value of those hams.”

 

When they walk into the local organic grocery store, a woman is manning the butcher counter.

 

“Wow,” Maggie snorts. “Way to put the butch in butcher.”

 

Alex shakes her head at the terrible pun and walks to the counter. “Excuse me, ma’am, do you recognize this picture?”

 

The woman, without looking up from her work, says, “No.”

 

“It’d help if you actually look at the picture.”

 

The woman looks up and takes a glance at the picture. “No. I don’t know him, or what happened.”

 

Alex sighs. “Look… what’s your name?”

 

“Siobhan.”

 

“Look, Siobhan, this man, Henry Morgenthau, was murdered in his apartment. His electronics weren’t taken, but some expensive hams were. We came here to see if anyone had tried to sell hams to you in the past few hours.”

 

“Don’t know him.”

 

“Okay, then.” Alex puts her hands on her hips. “Let me run a scenario for you. You _do_ know the man in this picture. He tried to sell you some hams, but you declined. You realized the hams were worth a lot of money, so you decided to steal them while he wasn’t home. Except, he was, so you shot him.”

 

Siobhan stays silent.

 

“Maybe some roleplay will jog your memory? Here, Maggie, help me out here.”

 

“Okay,” Maggie says. “Hi, I’m Siobhan.”

 

“No,” Alex says, “I’m Siobhan.”

 

“I don’t want to play the victim.”

 

“We’re not having this discussion here!” Alex hisses.

 

Maggie sighs. “Hello, I’m Henry Morgenthau, owner of expensive and delicious hams.”

 

Alex mimes pulling the trigger to her finger gun. “Kill. And, scene.”

 

When Siobhan bursts out of the counter running, it doesn’t take long for Alex and Maggie to catch and arrest her. As the butcher is being pushed into the car, Maggie says, “Feel better?”

 

Alex manages to peek a small smile. “It’s not that hard when you’re around, Sawyer.”

 

―――――

 

Wednesday night, Alex is a ball of stress. Maggie’s here with her (“Madison works late tonight,” she’d said, as if that was supposed to make Alex feel better), Alex’s phone has its ringer on and is in her lap in case it vibrates, and Maggie’s turned the television to some type of late night Animal Planet documentary knowing it’s right up Alex’s alley, but Alex can’t even pay attention.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she gestures at herself. “For this.”

 

“Don’t be.” Maggie takes Alex’s head and cradles it into her shoulder. Alex can smell Maggie’s shampoo. “You’ve worked so hard on this case, and some other precinct wants to steal it because it’s in their area? Fuck that. You’re allowed to be worried.”

 

“I just want it to go alright,” Alex says.

 

As the documentary plays, Alex’s head goes from Maggie’s shoulder to her lap, with Maggie absentmindedly playing with Alex’s hair. Alex closes her eyes when Maggie’s movements cause her nails to rake across Alex’s scalp, comfort growing in her chest, and Maggie looks down a few minutes later to realize Alex has fallen asleep.

 

It’s around 3 in the morning when the phone rings, both women startling awake, not even realizing they had fallen asleep. Alex, still groggy, reaches for her phone and clears her throat before answering. “Danvers.”

 

Maggie waits in anticipation but frowns when disappointment makes itself evident in Alex’s eyes. “Oh, okay.” Pause. “Will do, Captain. Have a good night."

 

“It didn’t work out?” Maggie asks. When Alex throws her phone onto the loveseat that rests besides the couch, Maggie reaches her hands out to grasp Alex’s shoulders. “Woah, okay, don’t freak out. Just tell me what happened.”

 

“The warehouse they managed to narrow it down to was empty. There was nothing there.” Alex’s voice cracks. “If I had been there, something could’ve worked. I swear.” Tears start to form in her eyes. “Fuck, Brian… If his information was wrong, what if they found out? Is he okay? The other precinct isn’t going to fucking care…”

 

Maggie slowly pulls Alex into her, rubbing the sniffling woman’s shoulders. “What we find out, we’ll find out tomorrow morning. Or, well, later today. Just sleep a little more, okay? Whatever happens, you’ll get through it, and I’ll be there for you.”

 

―――――

 

Thursday, Maggie is able to convince Alex to take a night off. They usually go play pool Thursdays; this time, Maggie asked if anyone else was available, because she wanted Alex surrounded by as many friends as possible.

 

Lucy and Winn were able to join, but in less than two hours, Lucy’s getting free drinks with Hot Bartender Sam and Winn’s accidentally involved himself in an arcade game contest, and is winning.

 

“So…” Maggie leans against the pool table, cocking her head at Alex. “Looks like we’re alone. Sorry.”

 

“Why are you sorry?” Alex shrugs. “You’re my best friend.”

 

“I just wanted to distract you, y’know?”

 

Alex looks down, picks invisible lint off of the green felt. She hasn’t heard from Brian. “The only thing that could get me distracted is getting absolutely hammered.”

 

“Then let’s do it.” Alex looks at Maggie, shocked. “Seriously. You’re not how you used to be, and I’ll make sure that if anything gets too out of control, we can go home.”

 

Alex is still giving her a dubious look.

 

“I’ll even split the tab.”

 

“You’re not even drinking.”

 

With that, Maggie gives a tender smile. “I know. But you deserve to let off some steam, even if it’s just for one night.”

 

And let off steam, Alex does. Even drunk, she plays a better pool game than Maggie, who doesn’t know whether to be upset or impressed. Truth be told, Maggie’s seeing another side of Alex Danvers. Alex partied hard her first few years of undergrad before switching to criminal justice, and she’s rarely been the type to drink after the grief Maggie’s been told it caused her.

 

It doesn’t take much to get Alex to become looser because Alex never drinks. Drunk Alex is a little more carefree. She’s more touchy, brushing against Maggie or grabbing her hips to move her if she’s in the way or tucking a strand of hair behind Maggie’s ear because she’d deemed in annoying, and Maggie’s glad Alex most likely doesn’t notice how loud she gasps every time they come into contact.

 

The last thing Maggie lets Alex do at the bar is try to catch peanuts Maggie’s throwing into her mouth, but after that, Maggie’s decided Alex needs to go home, lest she wake up with the worst hangover in the world.

 

Maggie has Alex propped up against her and she’s sticking the key Alex gave her several years ago into Alex’s apartment lock when Alex slurs, “You’re strong.”

 

“Well,” says Maggie, nudging the door open with her foot, “we both are. We’re cops. We have to keep in shape.”

 

“Hmm… still feels good when ya carry me.” Maggie helps Alex’s rambling self up to her highset bed and takes off her shoes, setting them on the floor. She knows Alex might not enjoy waking up in jeans, but Maggie doesn’t think she has the guts to take them off.

 

She gets some aspirin and a water bottle, writing a short and sweet note and placing all of the items on Alex’s bedside table. She thinks Alex is asleep, but Alex reaches out with the lightning speed of someone who was sober and takes her hand, squeezing it hard.

 

“Luv’yew,” she murmurs, and then quieter, Maggie can make out a, “stupid… lehsben… Earth.” With that, her grasp slides and she’s out cold.

 

Maggie takes a deep breath before locking the door behind her.

 

―――――

 

Maggie gets home after their adventure, her mind foggy, to see Madison sitting on the couch, fuming.

 

“Uh, babe? You okay? Why are you here?” Maggie sets her keys and wallet down on the stand placed next to the door for that very purpose.

 

“I dunno.” Madison shrugs indignantly. “Maybe I wanted to spend a night with my girlfriend?”

 

“Thursday nights, Alex and I go and play pool. You know that,” Maggie explains. “If you’d texted me about wanting to do something on tomorrow, I’d have loved to―”

 

“Why can’t I spend time with you _now_? Huh? You have to fit your girlfriend in your busy schedule.” As she says this, Madison stands up and crosses her arms across her chest. “I’m just not first priority. You’re a workaholic.”

 

“I have a job and a social life, Madison,” Maggie says. “You never want to hang out with my friends―”

 

“You never want to hang out with _mine_!”

 

“You’ve never invited me,” Maggie says.

 

“Because I don’t want you to feel the way I did,” Madison says. “I felt like I didn’t fit in.”

 

“You’d just met them!” Maggie says. “You barely returned Kara’s softball questions. She’s one of the easiest people to get along with.”

 

Madison narrows her eyes. “Are you saying I’m not easy to get along with?”

 

“No, no!” Maggie waves her hands in defense, and them flops them down by her sides. “Just… I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m trying really hard, I am, but sometimes it feels like I’m the only one.”

 

“I _am_ trying!”

 

“I’m not saying you’re not.” Maggie’s tone turns soft. “I’m just saying it _feels_ like it. I just want to communicate with you. Why do you dislike my friends and coworkers?”

 

“It’s…” Madison throws her hands up in what seems to be exhaustion. “Your friends were nice. I guess I just felt awkward. But it’s hard, going to stuff with you, like the barbeque and then game night, when she’s staring at you like that.”

 

Maggie knits her eyebrows together. “Who’s ‘she’?”

 

“ _Alex._  Maggie, we’ve been dating for seven months, and _I_ don’t even look at you like that.”

 

“What?!” Maggie laughs, half out of panic and half out of disbelief. “You… you think Alex is _in love_ with me?” She ignores her racing heartbeat, tries to forget what Alex had said just that night before passing out. “Madison, Alex and I are just friends. We have our saying, remember?”

 

“Yeah, sure, but she’s a friend you’d rather go to pool with than hang out with your girlfriend.”

 

Maggie’s shoulder’s sag. “That’s not true, first off, because like I said, pool is something we do every Thursday night. You can even come with me next time if you want!”

 

“I don’t want that.”

 

“Okay, but… she’s my best friend, Madison. I’m not going to forget about her just because you’re here. Why can’t I have both?”

 

“I don’t think her feelings are one-sided, Maggie,” Madison says. “And the thing is… sure, you _could_ have both. But you don’t. Because if you had to choose between me and Alex, you’d choose her, every time.”

 

“What’s wrong with that?” Maggie asks. “Between Alex and you, I’ve known Alex longer.”

 

Madison huffs. “You really don’t get it, do you? You’re, like, borderline sociopathic.” She marches past Maggie, and places her hand on the doorknob. “I don’t think I can continue this. Not when you’re like this.”

 

“Like what?” Maggie asks. She doesn’t understand, all of this information Madison is throwing her at lightning speed, it’s going around and around the racetrack of Maggie’s thoughts but she doesn’t _get it_. “What do you need me to change?”

 

Madison just shrugs, if barely that. “It’s not really anything you can change, Maggie. I just… I can’t go on like this. I’m sorry.”

 

And with that, she shuts the door. Maggie is alone.

 

―――――

 

Maggie wants to break something.

 

She’s good at a lot of things, and she knows it. Being a small-statured Italian lesbian causes for her confidence to be seen as pretentiousness, but there aren’t a lot of things Maggie doesn’t think she’s good at, and there are even less things Maggie doesn’t even _know_ she’s not good at.

 

Apparently tamping down her feelings for Alex Danvers is one of them.

 

Because, of course Madison is right. Of course she’s in love with Alex. How could she not be? She’d been attracted to the other woman since she’d scurried out of the elevator, rushed and panting, auburn hair pasted to her forehead.

 

But then she’d said she wasn’t gay.

 

But then she _was_ gay.

 

But then they’d both decided to be best friends and no matter how many times Maggie would snip the buds of romantic love blossoming inside her, they’d always grow back. She’d been so in denial about her feelings for the past few years she felt like she was in middle school again, watching _Bring It On_ in the small cinema in Wymore, the town over from Blue Springs, and trying not to look at how short the cheerleader’s skirts were.

 

Because Alex is her best friend. Her _best_ friend, best _friend_ , and Maggie can’t just throw that all away because her heart aches and her lungs burn and her stomach does somersaults at the thought of holding Alex’s hand and taking her out on a date and kissing every inch of her face and fucking her so hard Alex forgets the order the planets are in.

 

Maggie has built a new family with her precinct, and it’s something she’s pretty damn proud of, but she wishes she could travel back in time to steal the laughter out of past Maggie’s lungs right as Alex stutters out the _last lesbian on Earth_ line, because it was quite possibly the stupidest thing she’s ever done.

 

And Alex drunkenly saying _Love you_ before snoring into her pillow a millisecond later? Maggie’s probably just projecting. It’s normal for best friends to say that to each other. Hell, Alex probably says it to Winn and Lucy and James, too.

 

Maggie isn’t lucky enough to have Alex fall in love with her like that. Stupid Maggie― tearing out her heart and giving it to someone without even asking for something in return. She hasn’t been this naive with a relationship since Valentine’s Day 2001.

 

Whatever. It takes her what feels like forever to fall asleep, and tonight, she doesn’t dream; panic-induced from her brain trying to protect her, probably, because if she’d had the chance to, she’d dream about Alex, every single night, without a second thought.

 

―――――

 

Maggie comes into work Friday morning, sunglasses on, holding a cup of double espresso.

 

“Awww, Maggie,” Winn greets. “Hangover so bad even the fluorescents are too much?”

 

Maggie turns to stare at him. Even with her glare hidden, Winn squeals and gets back to work.

 

The Danvers sisters enter together a few moments later, Alex still looking like she’d rather be in bed and Kara smiling like she had just won the lottery. When Alex sees Maggie, though, a look of concern crosses her face, and she power walks over to her best friend.

 

“You okay?” she asks. She knows Maggie hadn’t had anything to drink the night before.

 

“I’m fine,” Maggie says, and Alex understands it to be _I’ll tell you about it later_. Alex nods in confirmation.

 

Later in the day (a boring one if you ask Alex and Maggie, a day filled with mainly paperwork), they’re walking to the deli place they like to visit a few blocks away when Alex pops the question. (No, not that question.)

 

“What happened?” she asks.

 

“Madison dumped me,” Maggie says. “Said I was a workaholic, borderline sociopathic…”

 

“None of that is true. Don’t believe her.”

 

“I… I don’t believe her on that stuff. She just said it in anger, and I don’t really care.” The duo turn a corner.

 

“So what did she say that made you feel the need to wear sunglasses for the first two hours of the day, Maggie? Everyone thinks you just got wasted, but I know you didn’t drink at all last night. You were cryi―”

 

“She just,” Maggie’s throat feels swollen as she tries to get the words out. “She just, she didn’t like that we were friends.”

 

“She didn’t?” Alex stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and within a few seconds, someone’s already bumping into her and cursing. City life. She speedwalks to catch up with Maggie. “What’s that even mean?”

 

Maggie doesn’t answer, and they’ve given their orders at the deli and are waiting on their sandwiches before she speaks again.

 

“She said, that if it was between you and her, I’d choose you, every time.”

 

“Oh,” is all Alex says. They get their food, and the walk back is silent. When they walk through the doors, Alex asks, “Is that what bothered you?”

 

“What? No. She was right. If she can’t accept that you’re my number one, she had the right to leave.” Maggie goes to her desk, and starts on paperwork.

 

Alex stands there, confused, because it still doesn’t explain why Maggie had been crying.

 

―――――

 

For the next two weeks, there’s a rat infestation, and it’s driving the precinct insane.

 

Kara learned Day One not to leave any wrappers around. On her desk, on the floor, even in the trash. She has to go outside to chow down on her hourly snacks before throwing them away in the dumpster out back, and she’ll admit, she feels the slightest bit of shame of having to go to those lengths.

 

Lucy, turns out, is deathly afraid of rats, and has been sitting on James’s lap for the past ten days.

 

Alex hits the side of her computer, only for it to go black for what seems like the hundredth time in the past hour. “Hey, Sawyer, I think the rats have chewed through my wire. Can I borrow your computer for a second?”

 

“Sure,” Maggie says, and tries not to breathe too deeply as Alex works inches from her. The combination of finally admitting her feelings for Alex and being single has had her senses on overdrive. Every smell, touch, sound that comes from Alex, it sends Maggie one step closer to plunging off the plateau of sanity.

 

Alex sees Maggie pull several weird facial expressions and asks, “Are you still upset about what Madison said about you?”

 

“Huh?” Maggie breaks out of her stupor, and it takes her a few second to process Alex’s question. “Um, no, not really.”

 

“Are you sure?” Alex’s face looks concerned and Maggie wants nothing more than to kiss the worry lines off of her face. It’d probably answer the question more clearly, too.

 

“Yeah, I’m enjoying the single life. A few less things to worry about.”

 

“I mean, I definitely understand the pros of being single…” Alex lets out a small breath of laughter, but Maggie can taste the hint of wistfulness from it, and her hopes flutter. “But if you need any help with a wingwoman, I’m here, okay?”

 

Stupid fucking last lesbian on Earth. Maggie feels the last of her hopes die off, but she manages to paint a smile on her face. It’s full of teeth and lies. “Of course, Danvers. You’re the first person I’ll come to.”

 

―――――

 

The last week of June is Pride.

 

The gang really only has time to go to the Sunday parade, a kidnapping case rolling over into late Friday night, early Saturday morning, honestly, and everyone spends Saturday catching up on sleep. This year, Pride is not only a celebration of who they are, but the relief of finding the seven year old girl they’d hunted down for 72 hours straight.

 

Alex, Maggie, Kara, Winn, Lucy, and James all go. Kara is the first to separate from the group, giving a two-finger salute when she sees Lena at one of the many food stands adorning the place.

 

“Get it, girl!” Lucy wolf whistles and cheers as Kara walks away.

 

“I don’t really need to think of my sister like that,” Alex says, and Lucy shrugs as if to say _Not my fault_.

 

The parade consists of Alex and Maggie getting mistaken as a couple so often, they soon learn it’s easier to let people think they are one. Winn manages to find some friends from his college LGBT group he wants to catch up on, and it’s not long after the parade that Lucy starts making eyes and James gives an semi sincere apologetic glance before the two leave together.

 

“Huh.” Maggie is standing in her rainbow suspenders and glitter-filled cheeked glory, and Alex does her best not to swoon right there in the dusk light. “No matter how many people we’re around, it always seems to be just us.”

 

Alex thinks that’s the most sense that’s ever been made in her life. “Well, we could go to my apartment, scrub all this glitter off, and find a corny movie to drink wine to.”

 

Maggie grins. “Sounds good to me!”

 

It’s hard for Alex to think about Maggie wearing her clothes, having just been naked in her shower. An orange Hello Sunshine shirt and an older pair of sweatpants Alex cut into homemade shorts, usually reaching her mid-thighs but almost touching Maggie’s knees.

 

Alex usually has better control of reserving herself, but with half a glass of wine in her system, her eyes drift to Maggie’s lips more often than she’d like. She probably won’t have any more for the night. Maggie’s put on some superhero movie, but Alex is barely watching.

 

“It’s pretty funny,” Alex says, “how so many people assumed we were dating.”

 

“You’re not paying attention,” Maggie comments, and she does her best to not bite back with a _No shit people assumed we were dating, Danvers!_ She bites her tongue so hard she doesn’t see Alex slouch a bit.

 

“Not really,” Alex admits, and she dramatically reclines against the arm of the couch. “Hero moves aren’t really my thing.”

 

“Then why did you let me pick it?”

 

Alex sits up. “I didn’t really care enough, I guess.”

 

“Not even for ScarJo? If she’d been an actress twenty years ago, she totally would’ve been my gay awakening.”

 

“Gay awakening.” It’s said as a statement, but Maggie hears the underlying question.

 

“Well, yeah,” Maggie says. “For gay women, it’s hard for us to realize we don’t like to like men, right? So there’s usually a woman that makes us realize we can like girls. It can happen at any time.”

 

“I can’t really think of a character that made me _realize_ I was a lesbian,” Alex muses, “but I’ve had some that I realize I like _now_ , I guess. Or I look back and look at the characters I idolized as a kid, but I never made the connection then.”

 

“Who said it had to be someone fictional?” Maggie says. “I mean, you realized only a few years ago, right? You _had_ to have had a woman that make you do a double take, make you change your whole perspective. I know you said it wasn’t me, but you’ve never really talked about it! Was it the hotline girl?”

 

“I dunno,” Alex says. She can feel her face heat up.

 

Maggie keeps egging her on, scooching closer to Alex every time she asks the question. “C’mon, who was it? Who was it? Who was it.”

 

Alex feels the cork pop off of the bottle that holds all of her repressed emotions, and she bursts, a moment of true bravery, her hands practically flailing. “It _was_ you! Okay?”

 

Maggie stares at her, only a few inches from her, blinking. “I… it was? But the― the last lesbian―”

 

“Was a lie I made because I panicked.” Alex tries to at _least_ look ashamed. “I didn’t want to deal with the aftermath of you knowing I’d felt that way about you. You’re really cocky when you think you can sweep every woman off her feet, you know that?”

 

“Only because they don’t _matter_ , Alex.” Maggie pauses, and her eyebrows draw together when she asks, “Wait, why didn’t you just… tell me when you were done liking me, huh?”

 

That’s the kicker. Alex’s heart is beating a mile a minute, the top of her ears and the back of her neck are most definitely flushed because they feel extremely warm, and she can feel her hands slightly trembling. “You might be waiting a while, then.”

 

Realization crosses Maggie’s eyes.

 

“I haven’t. Gotten done, that is.” And she’s about to apologize, the words are already on the tip of her tongue, making way through her teeth when Maggie―

 

Maggie takes a hand, cups Alex’s jawline, her thumb outlining Alex’s bottom lip. “Do you want to know why those girls never mattered to me? What Madison said that made me so upset?”

 

Alex wants to ask, _Why?_ , but her brain short circuits when Maggie touches her, and she can’t speak. Her eyes, though, are screaming, and like always, Maggie understands exactly what they’re saying.

 

“She said that you loved me, Alex, and she said the feelings weren’t unrequited.” Maggie’s eyes drop to where she’s tracing. “But… this whole time, I thought… I don’t know… I just never _knew_ … You could’ve said...”

 

Maggie leans in, and like a magnet, Alex’s forehead is touching hers. Two pairs of dark browns eyes stare into each other, and Alex can barely get out a, “ _You..._ could’ve said.”

 

“I guess we’re both pretty shit at communicating, then, yeah?” Alex nods, her hands coming up to thread themselves in Maggie’s long, dark hair. Maggie feels her throat instantly dry at this, and a spike of heat hits her low in her abdomen. “Fuck, Alex, I don’t… I want you, so badly, but I don’t want to ruin this friendship.”

 

Alex can feel Maggie when she breathes, they’re so close. She can see Maggie’s eyes dilate as the lust between both of them feels more and more palpable with every second that passes. Alex takes every ounce of courage she has left when she says, “Ruin it.”

 

Maggie closes the few inches of distance they hadn’t covered and molds her lips against Alex’s, and Alex lets out an intuitive moan, a combination of lust and love and relief and _need_ that had been building against a dam of tension that had been in her chest for years finally being released as the floodgates opened.

 

As Alex kisses Maggie, she doesn’t really taste anything at first, but after what seems like an eternity and a few seconds at the same time, Alex realizes she can taste something indescribably _Maggie,_  and that thought makes her stomach spin like wind chimes in a hurricane. She soon has both of her hands clasped in her lap and her shoulders hunched drastically in Maggie’s direction as she begins to realize that this is really happening.

 

When they part, it’s only so they can find the air to breathe. Alex lets out a, “Wow,” before she can stop herself, and a layer of embarrassment blushes over the lust on her cheeks as Maggie snickers. “Shut up!”

 

“I liked it too.” Maggie reaches out and traces Alex’s jawline. They’re both fully clothed, but have never felt so vulnerable.

 

Clothes. Speaking of those, Alex wants them gone. She’s too nervous to look Maggie in the eye as she says it, so she looks up through her eyelashes as she asks, “Do you want to move this to the bedroom?”

 

All anxiety washes away as Maggie groans, “God, yes,” so Alex stands and pulls Maggie up with her, one hand fisted into the orange tee and the other grasping at Maggie’s neck so the kiss on the way to Alex’s bed can be deeper than their first one.

 

Getting to the bed, Maggie is too distracted to lift herself on the bed and too short to simply jump, which makes Alex chuckle. Maggie can feel the vibrations of it travel down her throat and into her gut, and when Alex gingerly picks her up to seat her on the bed and moves to where she’s standing in between Maggie’s legs, her back arches to get closer to Alex.

 

Alex leans forward, pushing Maggie further into the mattress, and starts to give soft kisses to Maggie’s jawline. When she gets to Maggie’s ear, she nips at the earlobe, and Maggie gasps. Alex then stops what she’s doing to observe Maggie all flushed, and Maggie would usually feel self-conscious under such a dark and intense stare but she’s too busy staring at Alex back, lips slightly puffy and red and hair all tousled.

 

Fist still in Maggie’s shirt, Alex tugs and says, “This needs to go.”

 

“Only if yours does, too.” Maggie suddenly realizes by the nipples poking through Alex’s pajama shirt that she isn’t wearing a bra underneath, so when Alex tugs it up and off, she’s instantly naked from the waist up.

 

Maggie sits up to take off her own shirt just as fast but she’s still wearing the black tee shirt bra she wore to the parade. She scoots further into the bed to make Alex come up on the bed with her, and positions Alex so that she’s straddling Maggie, and Maggie holds a hip in one hand and tentatively reaches for one of Alex’s breasts in the other. Her hands become more focused and confident when Alex leans into the touch enough to where when she gasps, Maggie can feel it on her lips.

 

Alex takes Maggie by the cheeks and kisses her hard as Maggie instinctively squeezes in all the right places, and they kiss and kiss and kiss until Alex parts them and lightly taps Maggie on the shoulders with the flat of her palms to get Maggie to lay back down so she can continue the trail of kisses she’d been leaving on Maggie’s neck not too long before.

 

When Alex’s mouth gets to the border of Maggie’s cups, Maggie lifts her back slightly and Alex is able to unhook her bra, one-handed, while she continues kissing between Maggie’s breasts and Maggie realizes the awkward gayby she’d become friends with years ago has now turned into a lesbian hotshot.

 

After tossing the undergarment away from the bed, Alex bites and sucks and teases one of Maggie’s breasts with her mouth and palms the other with her hand, and then vice versa. Maggie feels a combination of disbelief in that Alex would ever give her body this amount of attention, lust in that she is, and raw emotion that _has_ to be unbridled love but out loud, Maggie will name it as anything but.

 

All of a sudden it seems like Alex is at Maggie’s waist, toying with the waistband of her own sweatshorts and Maggie knows Alex must be looking at her, but her eyes are alternating between almost shut and shut tightly in pleasure and her head is tossed back so she says, “Yes, Alex, please,” and Alex takes off that and her underwear, and now, Maggie is bare.

 

Alex goes down to shower Maggie’s thighs in kisses and hickeys, and Maggie has one hand lightly trailing through Alex’s hair, fingers twitching in anticipation when she gets close to where Maggie needs it the most, and the other hand loosely fisting the sheets.

 

Alex happens to look up at the exact second Maggie looks down and they make eye contact as Alex separates from the work she’s done and slowly takes a thumb to part one of the lips to Maggie’s pussy.

 

“Alex,” Maggie gasps, “please.”

 

The way Alex hears Maggie moan her name like that gets her to instantly part Maggie’s lips and start with one broad, lick with a flattened tongue that ends in flicking Maggie’s throbbing clit. Maggie’s breath hitches and she ends up with both hands in Alex’s hair, tugging and pulling as Alex eats her out. Her hips arch dramatically to get Alex’s mouth as close as she physically can before Alex takes her arm and sets it on Maggie’s hips, effectively pinning them to the bed.

 

When Maggie orgasms, she sees white, her toes curl, her mouth is open in a silent scream, and her entire body shakes as the aftershocks travel through her. Alex licks and kisses Maggie’s already sensitive core, cleaning her up which causes Maggie to tremble as another smaller orgasm hits her.

 

When she’s able to move her limbs, she climbs over Alex and growls, “C’mere,” as she shucks the rest of Alex’s clothes off, as she slowly starts to explore every inch of Alex’s body there is to offer with her hands and lips, Alex’s breathy moans and gasps and sometimes squeaks only furthering her ambition.

 

Alex is beautiful. Maggie has known this, but Alex is infinitely more stunning when she’s naked. In the rose-colored goggles of her post orgasm, Maggie’s simultaneously heightened and tunneled senses are flooded by the woman below her. Suddenly, the freckles sprinkled across Alex’s heaving chest and the quivering thighs has Maggie feeling like an astronaut lost in a galaxy of stars, and all Maggie can do is―

 

“Maggie?” Alex’s voice swims in a sea of desire, like she’s drowning and she’s barely managing to get enough air for her words to come out. “You good?”

 

And Maggie doesn’t want to be caught in something sentimental enough to cross the boundaries these two have had for years, the ones they’ve crashed through in just a single night. The greener grass is barely visible through the side of the fence Maggie is on, and she’s too scared to face the consequences of taking more than a peek, so she ignores Alex’s question by slowly inserting a finger into her, taking into account the way Alex gasps, the way Alex asks for more, harder, until Maggie has fucked Alex with one hand, using her other one to take turn in massaging Alex’s breasts, twisting both nipples between pointer finger and thumb. She gives Alex’s chest and collar bone kisses and bites when she feels Alex’s warmth start to clench on her fingers.

 

Her orgasm reminds Alex of the eye of the storm. It’s peaceful, but she knows that when she opens her eyes, when she comes to,, she’ll see the mess that’s Maggie Sawyer, flopping down next to her in bed.

 

But it’s sexy. A sexy Hurricane Maggie.

 

“That was nice,” Maggie comments, breaking the silence.

 

“Oh,” Alex says, “you think we’re done?”

 

“Are we not?” Maggie says.

 

Alex takes this time to climb over Maggie, straddling her waist. “I don’t think so. We chase bad guys for a living, right? I know we have the stamina for more than just one round.”

 

And, for the second time and several times after that, Maggie lets herself fall.

 

―――――

 

Maggie wakes up to Alex spooning one of the many pillows adorned on her large, expensive bed, her back bare as the sunrise’s weak rays shine over her. She looks like she’s sparkling, and Maggie has a feeling Alex wasn’t able to get _all_ of the glitter out from the day before. Auburn hair is spread out, and Maggie knows that if she went around and looked, Alex’s peacefully sleeping face would be the most beautiful thing to grace Maggie’s presence.

 

 _An angel,_ Maggie thinks, and then last night hits her. Hard.

 

She doesn’t know what to do; her friendship with Alex was the one thing she could count on in her unstable joke of a life, and now it’s in danger of being different. No, it already _is_ different― Maggie knows they’ll never be the same, that their relationship will never be the way it was.

 

With the way Alex said her name last night, Maggie doesn’t think she’d want to forget. But she isn’t high on Alex’s body and warmth and sex anymore; it’s morning, it’s reality, and any and all possible consequences are starting to form in Maggie’s head. Even seeing Alex’s bare form in the sunshine is only a buzz compared to the high that was last night.

 

There are some things that come naturally to people― Maggie’s is thinking of the worst case scenario and trying to stop it before it happens. Panicking, she quickly puts on her base parade outfit of a white tee and high waisted jean shorts as quietly as she can, and she does what she does best.

 

She runs.

 

―――――

 

“So…” Alex does her weird half-jog half-walk thing towards Maggie that usually makes her laugh, but just makes her stomach twist in anticipation of where the conversation will end up. “We could’ve carpooled, you know.”

 

Maggie looks around the precinct. Not everyone is here yet, but enough are. “Do you want to speak about this in… like, the break room?”

 

Alex’s shoulders straighten, and Maggie wants to cry.

 

Closing the door, Alex crosses her arms, and Maggie can’t tell if it’s to be authoritative or become smaller. “I think I know where this is going,” she says, and Maggie can feel her heartbreak teetering over the edge of the cliff Maggie metaphorically dived over the night before.

 

“I just… you’re my best friend, Alex. I don’t want to lose you if this goes wrong. I don’t want things to be different.” Except they had made sure it would be. More than once, or twice, or even three times. Maggie already sees Alex differently; she intimately knows the curves under Alex’s detective uniform that consists of soft shirts and leather jackets. Her fingers have gone over every groove with the amount of detail a sculptor goes over a cut of marble.

 

And if Maggie is a sculptor and Alex is a marble statue, Maggie puts Michelangelo to fucking shame.

 

Alex just sighs in what Maggie has a feeling is defeat, and can she blame her? Maggie wouldn’t fight for her either.

 

“This really isn’t how I imagined it to go.” Alex’s hand gingerly touches the door. “I know I wasn’t the only one who felt that, Maggie. I don’t like being a one night stand, and I don’t like being one with my best friend. I was hoping, naively, that, I dunno… I’d help you realize you’re worth it. Someday, Maggie Sawyer, you’ll stop being a coward.”

 

“I’m not a coward,” Maggie says, even though she knows it’s a little bit true. “It’s self defense, and you _know_ that. I just wanted to protect―”

 

“Protect what? Yourself?” Alex asks. There’s a pause, Maggie’s mouth open, hoping the action will bring forth her protest. When nothing comes out, Alex says, “You were staring at me.”

 

Maggie does a signature head tilt in confusion. “What?”

 

“Last night. That pause before… and I asked if you were good. I’m not stupid. The way you seemed to be looking at me… What’s so terrible about you and I that you want to protect yourself from it?”

 

Maggie’s reply is weak. “It’s not me I’m protecting.”

 

“I don’t _need_ protection.”

 

Alex leaves after that, slamming the door behind her, and Maggie is stuck like the piece of art she’d imagined Alex to be.

 

(Alex enters the bullpen to see everyone staring at her, surprised not in that she’s grumpy, but who the grumpiness was towards. She just huffs and walks somewhere where she can clear her head.)

 

―――――

 

When Kara goes to the bathroom after drinking three Big Gulps worth of fruit punch powerade and her bladder begging for a desperate release, she’s surprised to hear muffled crying in one of the stalls inadequately trying to quiet down once Kara swings the main door open.

 

She’s even more surprised when she glances down at the space between the stall door and the floor and sees a pair of Doc Martens. It’s her sister.

 

“Alex?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”

 

When Alex realizes who’s entered the restroom, she lets out a shaky breath only for all the air to hyperventilate back up. She barely accomplishes fiddling with the stall lock enough to get it out of its holster. Kara opens the door to see her older sister red-faced and sitting fully clothed on one of the toilets, new and old tears staining her cheeks.

 

“M-Maggie, umm…” Alex takes a generous amount of toilet paper and tries to blot the utter heartbreak that paints her face. “We slept together last night.

 

Kara grimaces. “I’m guessing by what’s going on right now, it didn’t end well.”

 

“She doesn’t like me… like that.” Alex buries her face in her hands.

 

“That’s not true,” Kara says, “that’s not true. Here, can you get out of the stall? I want to hug you.”

 

Alex takes the short journey from standing up to practically falling into Kara’s arms as they walk out into the main area. Kara figures she’s lucky she went into the back bathroom, the one that most don’t go to― there’s a bathroom nearer to the bullpen that most detectives will use before they walk all the way through the hallway. She also figures it’s why Alex chose this one to cry in.

 

“Alright.” Kara holds Alex in her arms and leans her back against the counter with the sinks to hold both of them steady. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

 

“We went to my apartment after the parade and got changed,” Alex says. “One thing led to another… Kara, I’ve never felt so full. I really thought, _this is it_ , you know? It was finally happening. And then in the break room she tells me it can’t happen because she needs to protect me. And when I came in here, I was mad, because why would I need protecting from her? I know everything, even the dark stuff. But then…” Alex’s voice wavers. “I thought, what if she’s protecting me from that fact that she doesn’t like me back? That she doesn’t love me as much as I love her? Fuck, I… I’m so humiliated.” Alex leans into Kara’s shoulder and more tears come out.

 

“Alex, Maggie looks at you the same way you look at her. Maybe you’ve been in your head too long.”

 

“No. We’re supposed to be best friends, right? I know her more than anyone else? I can’t think of another reason, Kara, I can’t.”

 

Kara doesn’t keep track of how long the two sisters stand there, how long she rubs Alex’s arms and consoles her, but when Alex looks up and her breathing is slightly more even than it was when Kara walked in, she says, “Hey. Do you need anything else?”

 

“A drink.” Alex snorts and then shakes her head. “No, um, I just want to clean up. You can go.”

 

“Okay, well… I did go in here to use the bathroom. So I’m gonna do that first.”

 

Alex shows the first smile Kara’s seen on her face all day.

 

When Kara walks back to her desk, she spots Maggie on the way there, looking at a manila folder as if she’d been staring at it for hours but not being able to process anything that was written in it. She looks up to see Kara, and Kara gives her a cold look, and wonders if Maggie can see the tear stains that litter the top right of her button up.

 

By the guilty look that crosses Maggie’s face, Kara knows she can.

 

―――――

 

Hours later, Henshaw, J’onn, whatever the gang felt like calling him that day, ordered Maggie, Alex, Kara and Winn to go investigate a murder of an alien in their apartment. Alex looks like she hasn’t cried by that time, but she still itches at having to be in the same general area as Maggie. She’d been avoiding doing anything at her desk for that very reason.

 

“Okay.” Maggie starts listing off the facts as the group walks through the crime tape to get into the room. “Neighbors have said the alien and the human they’d been rooming with have been arguing for the past couple of weeks. Human says he went to get some mail, left the door unlocked, and came back to see some masked man murdering the alien. He doesn’t have a good alibi and was aggressive when told he was a suspect, so there’s reason to believe he murdered his roommate.”

 

“So,” Kara says, snapping on her gloves, her tone neutral. “Basically look for anything in the apartment? What was the murder weapon?”

 

“Something similar to a corkscrew,” Maggie answers. “I’ll start off in the kitchen.” She notices almost immediately that Alex walks away to start off in the farthest bedroom.

 

Alex could be standoffish, and awkward, and extremely stubborn, but when she was friends with you, when you got close to her, she loved more fiercely than anyone Maggie had ever seen. Maggie used to always feel sympathetic for those who got on Alex’s bad side― she had a cold shoulder like it was nobody’s business.

 

Maggie never really expected to have to face it herself, one day.

 

Over half an hour later, and no one has found anything close to a corkscrew shape. All four of them are back in the kitchen, trying to brainstorm out of the corner they’ve been blocked into.

 

“Maybe some roleplay will help us get our thoughts together,” Maggie suggests. “Winn, want to be the victim?”

 

“I don’t want to be the victim,” Winn whines. If he notices the tension between Maggie and the Danvers sisters, he’s nice enough not to act like it. “I’m always the victim. I already have enough of an inferiority complex. Why can’t you be the victim for once?”

 

“I’m never the victim, you know that. Winn, you can be the door. Kara―”

 

“Okay, I’ll be the victim!” Winn brings his hands up in defeat. “Anything but the door.”

 

“Okay.” Maggie straightens her shoulders and gets into character. “I am… a human. You’re my roommate and we’ve been arguing.”

 

“I argue back.”

 

“Stab, stab, stab, I take the corkscrew aaand… throw it away in the garbage,” Maggie says, going with her instinct and motioning to the garbage chute built into the wall of the kitchen. She sees Alex is looking through the couch cushions for the millionth time rather than be in the same room as her. She can’t blame her.

 

“I’ve checked the garbage at least three times,” Kara says, and she crosses her arms. “I would’ve seen a bloody corkscrew.”

 

“What do you think happened, then?” Maggie asks.

 

“Maybe the guy threw the corkscrew out the window onto a passing car.”

 

“Tapes don’t show any cars around at the time of the murder.” Maggie cups her chin in thought.

 

“I’ll join in,” Alex says, suddenly in the room, and she points her finger at Maggie, “but I only want to stab you.”

 

Maggie slouches. She can’t exactly blame Alex. “Fine. Hey, roomie―”

 

Alex mimes holding a weapon up. “Time to die.”

 

“Harsh,” Maggie mutters, but a look of realization crosses Alex face.

 

“Wait,” Alex says, “what if the corkscrew was magnetic? The type you’d put on your fridge. If that were the case, it’d be stuck in the metal chute.”

 

They all gather around the chute. Alex cracks it open. “I have a flashlight,” she says, motioning to her tool belt ( _not_ the time to be thinking about that, Maggie!), “but whose body is lithe and flexible enough to get in there?”

 

“Finally.” Winn dramatically cracks his knuckles. “Doing gymnastics my entire childhood has come in handy.”

 

A few minutes later… “Guys, I found it!”

 

―――――

 

When they get back, there’s a call for a meeting in the briefing room. Winn was the only one out of the four in any mood to be particular goofy, but after hanging around the three other women and their unspoken drama for the past case, he’d grown serious, too, so when they walked in to see the Captain standing at the podium, a more grim expression than what was usual on his face, no one needed to be reprimanded for reading the mood incorrectly.

 

When everyone settles, Henshaw says, “Over the past few weeks, our team has been building a secret identity for a double agent that can get into Maxwell Lord’s ranks of illegal alien weapon distribution due to our last one having not been heard from for the past few weeks.”

 

Alex, at hearing this, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and tries not to think about what happened to Brian if he had been caught.

 

“Because of the severity of this mission, the board has asked if someone from our precinct, due to the experience with aliens compared to others, would go undercover.”

 

“I’ll go.” Alex stands up and speaks the second Henshaw is finished with his sentence. “Brian was _my_ contact. It’s my fault our intel was bad. I want to go in there and fix it.”

 

“And you know your identity hasn’t been compromised already?”

 

Alex nods. “I wore different disguises every time I met up with Brian, wore clothes that weren’t mine, and went to areas of town that weren’t near the precinct or my own home.”

 

“Seriously, Alex? Are you sure?” Maggie pipes up. “Lord will kill someone who even just blinks the wrong way.”

 

Alex stands up and spins around to look Maggie directly in the eye when she says, “Oh, are you trying to protect me again?”

 

“Again?” Lucy asks, but it falls on deaf ears.

 

Henshaw blinks. “Alex. If you’re chosen, you’ll probably be gone by the end of the week. They’ve already planted whispers about the role you’ll play, but now they can make it more specific. If you have any cases that need closing, you can either finish them today or hand them off to someone else, because for the next few days, you’ll need to be trained for your identity.”

 

“I don’t have anything to finish,” Alex says. “Hell, I could start training today, if you want.” She ignores the way Kara grits her teeth at that and holds a hand up when Maggie tries to speak up. “If it’s not too much of a bother.”

 

Henshaw looks at the tension building, but doesn’t want to say no to Alex, especially in a mission where timing is crucial. “Okay. I’ll go call the board. You… stay here.”

 

As he walks out, most of the other employees quickly follow suit except for Alex, Kara, and Maggie. Lucy pats Alex on the shoulder and says, “Good luck,” not wanting to endure the drama of staying, but Winn scrambles and hugs Alex tight, inadvertently drawing Lucy into it. James finishes up the hug by wrapping his huge build around Lucy, Winn, and Alex.

 

“We’re gonna miss you, Alex!” Winn says. “Please stay safe.”

 

Alex, in the small space she’s able to, ruffles Winn’s hair. “Of course I will. Don’t trust me?”

 

“I trust you, but still… I’m going to make sure you have digital footprint whatsoever. So I can sleep at night.”

 

“We trust _you_ ,” James says, “we just don’t trust _them_.” Seeing Kara and Maggie shuffling their feet, he lets go and gives a two-finger salute as he walks out of the briefing room, Lucy and Winn following behind him.

 

Kara walks up to Alex and puts her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “I’m not excited about this,” Kara admits. “It’s short notice. I mean sure, maybe they won’t choose you, but let’s be real. You know more about this case than anyone else does, so if they don’t choose you, they’re stupid. I don’t like seeing you go. I don’t like having to go without contact. And most of all, I don’t like how dangerous this is.” She sighs. “But I trust you, okay? I trust you. You’ll bring them down.”

 

She pulls Alex into her arms and they hug each other tightly. After several long minutes, she lets go, and walks out of the room, but not before turning around and glaring at Maggie.

 

When it’s just them, Maggie feels even smaller than usual. She puts on the most normal, not dying on the inside expression she can muster. “Hey, Danvers.”

 

Alex’s body language shows she’d rather be anywhere than in the current situation. Her voice is soft, but cold. When you break a vase and try to fix it with tape. “I don’t know what you want.”

 

“What I want?” Maggie takes a step closer, and it takes all of Alex’s power not to take a step back. She’s hurt, but she won’t be weak. “I just want to know why the hell you’re throwing yourself out there like that.”

 

“How is it throwing myself out?” Alex asks. “This case is practically my child with the nights I’ve toiled figuring it all out. It makes sense I’d want to go.”

 

“I just… I feel like you wouldn’t be as apt to go if last night hadn’t happened.”

 

“Yeah, well, I already know you regret it.” Alex rolls her eyes.

 

“At least I’m not going undercover to run away,” Maggie snaps, and Alex narrows her eyes. “That’s pretty fucking selfish.”

 

“Selfish?” Alex repeats. “You know what’s selfish? Fucking your best friend and then when she pours out her heart to you, breaking it in the name of stupid ‘protection’. I get it, okay? You don’t like me the same way I like you.”

 

“That’s not what I _meant_ ―”

 

Alex suddenly puts her hands up protectively, and momentarily squeezes her eyes tightly before continuing. “Look… I can’t, I can’t argue with you before I’m about to go undercover, okay? And I can’t talk about it. Right now, I just want to hug my best friend.” Alex, head down, peers up into Maggie’s eyes, pleading. “Please?”

 

Maggie’s on her way to hugging Alex before the _Please?_ can even fully come out, trying her best to keep the tears in when Alex’s head naturally goes into the crook of her shoulder. She takes a deep breath, not even caring how loud it is, to get the smell of Alex and her flowery shampoo.

 

“Detective Danvers?” Henshaw walks into the briefing room, but pauses as he sees Alex and Maggie break contact. (Well, almost all contact. Maggie stills holds Alex’s hand in hers with a light enough grasp that Alex could easily separate if she wanted to. She doesn’t.) Henshaw clears his throat. “They’re ready whenever you are.”

 

Alex nods, and follows Henshaw into his office.

 

It’s the second time Maggie’s let go of Alex that day.

 

―――――

 

It’s hard to do cases without Alex, Maggie learns.

 

No, not because Maggie is inept at her job. In fact, her outstanding mental and physical test scores were why she got recruited for the the Science Division in the first place.

 

It’s because Alex would think outside of the box. It’s because Maggie would always get something so gross on her gloves she’d need to change them and Alex always had extra pairs for her. It’s because the first few times Maggie went to the deli, the boisterous Italian couple that owned it would ask why she was only getting one order before they realized Alex wasn’t around for there to be two. It’s because, more than anything, she missed her best friend.

 

She’s changed her phone screen to a picture of Alex and her from the parade. Even though that night, and the following morning, were what caused everything to break between them, seeing Alex on her phone so easily calms her, helps Maggie reassure herself that Alex is okay.

 

Two months into the undercover operation, Kara speeds into the bullpen, doing a full parkour over the gate instead of opening it like a normal person would. “Guys!” she exclaims. “I have good news about Alex!”

 

“Is she back?” Winn asks. “Oh my god, she’s back. We need cheap beer and we need it _now_.”

 

“No, Winn,” Kara says, “Alex isn’t back. But I’m allowed to write a one page letter to her that her contact will read to her and then set on fire, so does anyone want to say anything?”

 

“Tell her I haven’t been watching Scandal without her,” Winn says.

 

“Tell her this,” James says, and then he nods slightly.

 

“You… want me to write that you nodded slightly?”

 

“She’ll know what it means.”

 

“I would like you to tell Alexandra that I’m thinking about her and hope she’s safe,” Lucy says, and everyone raises an eyebrow. “What? Meet the new Lucy, who always puts others before herself.” She pauses. “Can you include that part in the letter?”

 

“I’ll just tell her everything’s the same.” Kara glances over at the one person who hasn’t answered. “Maggie? Is there anything you want to say?”

 

Maggie looks up from her paperwork. “You’d let me say something?”

 

“I’m mad at you, but I’m not a jerk,” Kara snaps, and then she quickly recomposes herself. “Look, not the time. What do you want me to put in the letter?”

 

“Just… tell her we all miss her. And we know she’s doing a kickass job.”

 

Kara nods. “Will do.”

 

―――――

 

Alex, who has been Sam Harper for the past seven weeks, has finally passed the physical, mental, and background tests to be one of Maxwell Lord’s low tier bodyguards. She’d purposefully kept the mental tests lower than she’d actually do on them, and it looks like it’d paid off.

 

Lord’s smarmy face is inches from hers when he congratulates her, and it takes all of her strength to not punch it when he kisses her knuckles. “As you know, being one of my bodyguards can have a high turn out rate if you’re not careful enough. After some miscalculated and idiotic double agents were found, I had to find almost an entirely new group of people. You’ve shown your stuff, Miss Harper. Don’t let me down.”

 

And, oh, Alex won’t.

 

―――――

 

It’s a Tuesday. Maggie, who has been keeping track on her calendar, knows it’s been exactly one hundred days since Alex went undercover. There’s been no contact, no communication, due to the seriousness of the investigation. The only thing Maggie has heard from Alex has been the info she’s learned from J’onn. For a big and terrifying black market weapons seller, Maggie thinks Maxwell Lord is too trusting, that the rumors of his ruthlessness are just talk, because for not even two months, Alex already seems to know quite a lot.

 

Or maybe Alex is just that _good_ , and that thought causes Maggie’s heart to flutter.

 

Right now, though, she’s angry.

 

“I just don’t get it,” Maggie half mumbles, half announces to the precinct. “I know this was supposed to take a while, but it’s been over three months.”

 

“Can’t really blame anyone for that,” Winn says, and he only shrugs when Maggie glares at him.

 

Maggie just huffs. “I can’t even scare you anymore.”

 

“I’ve been going to therapy to talk about my deep-rooted father issues,” Winn states, as if he’s stating the weather. “Don’t worry, you’re still extremely scary. I’m just gaining more confidence.... I like to think so, at least.”

 

“Why’d she take that stupid job, anyway?” Maggie slumps into her spinning office chair, crossing her arms. Of course, she knows why, but she’s just in the mood to complain about things she can’t control. It’s one of those days. “It was such short notice and so dangerous compared to any other undercover mission―”

 

“You know, this may seem shocking,” Lucy, who had appeared out of the copy room, carrying folders likely meant to go to Captain “Henshaw”, “but Alex is a police officer, and she knew the job was dangerous when signing up for it. Not to mention it’s probably lasting longer because she has to get onto Lord’s good side, and that means waiting for the best raid to leak instead of squealing the first time she gets info.”

 

“But going undercover _just_ like that?” Maggie says. “She had a few days to prepare and then was shipped off by the end of it. We didn’t… we didn’t even get to talk about it all that much.”

 

With that, Kara pops her head out from doing her own paperwork. She knows Maggie is stressed― she is too, frankly― but whining about it won’t change that Alex isn’t there. “Why does Alex need to somehow ask you permission to go undercover?”

 

“I’m not… I’m not saying that, Kara!” Maggie sits up straighter. “I’m just saying we usually talk about these sort of things―”

 

“Oh, really?” Kara stands up. “So you discussed things when Alex went undercover as a Walmart employee in an area known for gang shootings for two and a half months? When you went undercover to bust a drug ring? This isn’t your first undercover rodeo, Sawyer, and it’s not hers either.” She points an accusing finger at Maggie. “You’re not upset because you didn’t know ahead of time.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Maggie walks up to Kara’s desk. “Pray tell how you know me so well.”

 

Kara stands her ground, fire clashing in her water-colored eyes, and the rest of the precinct, the few petty criminals in holding included, sit in silence. “Fine. You wanna know? I had to console a sobbing Alex in the bathroom after your talk in the break room because she couldn’t hold it in! You rejected her. Which, I really don’t get, because you’re so in love with her it hurts.” Maggie is about to speak over Kara when Kara holds up her finger.  “No, no, I’m sorry, but we all know what happened that night. Speaking in low voices in the break room isn’t private. Those walls are thinner than a photoshopped Kardashian. I get it, Maggie. You think you’re too screwed up to be with my sister. But you know what? We’re _all_ screwed up. Heck, round up all of us as little high schoolers, and you’d barely have enough parents to count on your hands!

 

You’re not mad at Alex because she took the job. You’re mad because you weren’t brave enough to tell her how you really felt, and then she left because she couldn’t stand to be in the same room as you. I’m not saying you’re the only reason she took the job… we all know how Alex is. She would’ve volunteered anyway. And this case in particular is extremely important to her. But I’m sure you breaking her heart the day before was a catalyst.

 

You think you’re the only one that loves her?” Kara jams her thumb into her sternum, and her eyes are bloodshot from trying to hold back tears. “ _I_ love her. That woman is my _sister_ , and I can’t go save her. I worry every single night if she’s gonna die. And it’s not… it’s not a contest! We both love her so, so much. But you’re a coward. You couldn’t tell her, and now she’s risking her neck for us and she’s probably thinking about how she’s helping you when she thinks you don’t even _love_ her because Alex will do anything for the people she loves, including and especially if it hurts her, because she may not love often, but when she does…” Kara takes a deep and shaky breath. “She changes your life.”

 

“You don’t think I know that?” Maggie says. “But I’m not the only coward! I realized only a few days later that I’d fucked up and I needed to make amends, but Alex was already gone. I haven’t been able to make amends because Alex decided to go on probably the most dangerous undercover operation in years because she hated me that much.

 

And of course I care for Alex! But silly me, thinking we’d agreed to be _just_ friends and reiterating that almost all of the time. How was I supposed to know we _both_ hated it? I miss her, Kara, more than anything I’ve ever missed. And I’ve missed a lot. You know,” Maggie lets out a wet laugh, “I’ve lost almost ten pounds since this whole mess started.” And it’s easy to tell, Maggie’s already-small frame looking slightly smaller than usual. “Don’t act like I don’t know what a privilege it is to be close to her, because out of all the decisions I’ve made in my life, the decision to become her friend is one of the best ones. But does she see herself down the line with me, Kara, like I do her? What if ten years pass and she realizes I’m not worth it? I already know I’m not, and she doesn’t deserve to waste her time. I just wanted to protect her.”

 

“That’s not your choice to make, though, is it?”

 

And with that, Kara spins on her heel and exists to who knows where, Maggie wasn’t really paying attention, because all Maggie can hear Alex’s words of _I don’t_ need _protection_ , of how Maggie has been fighting her whole life to make sure those closest to her were prioritized so they don’t leave her, and how someone had finally waltzed into Maggie’s life and done the same to her, _prioritized_ her, and Maggie was so inept she hadn’t even noticed until Alex was gone.

 

And that’s the thought process she’s had for the past hundred days, but it’s exemplified in an open room full of her coworkers, her friends, the family she had to build after the one she’d been made in wouldn’t accept her, and the small part of her that still feels fourteen and unloved and _small_ wants to go into a corner and cry for three years.

 

God, she’d been so fucking stupid. Maggie had been so busy looking at Alex like she hung the stars it took the night sky turning dark for her to realize Alex had been hanging them for _her_.

 

The precinct is filled with so much tension it could be cut with a knife. Maggie’s posture is kin to a deflated balloon as those around her awkwardly go back to what they had been doing beforehand, but all Maggie can think about is how she needs to fix this. But she can’t, she _can’t_ , and the best she can do is walk outside to get some fresh air.

 

―――――

 

That night, Maggie gets hammered.

 

Usually when she’s in a self-destroying mood, she goes to a bar, gets enough alcohol in her to make it feel better but nothing close to blacking out, and she fucks some woman hoping it’ll make her forget.

 

This time is different. She knows that any interaction with a woman in that manner would only remind her of Alex, would remind her of the night they shared. So she spirals, alone, in her apartment and in her bed, staring at the wall wishing she was doing anything but.

 

Four drinks in, she decides fuck pouring the scotch into a glass, and she sips straight from the bottle. If she squints really hard and lets her imagination get the best of her, Alex is _there_. She’s in the underwear she was wearing the night they got together― a simple black bra and boyshorts, but it was by far the sexiest thing Maggie had even seen a woman wear― and she’s inching towards the bed Maggie’s on before Maggie shakes her head and clears the thought.

 

She’s drunk, but she’s not pathetic. She’s going to crave Alex’s arms around her and Alex’s body under her and getting to hear Alex’s voice after what feels like an eternity of having to go without, but she’s not going to daydream about satisfying it. She doesn’t deserve that.

 

She’s in love with Alex. This is not a revelation, just an observation about the world around her, something people learn to do when their toddlers. That’s not why she’s drinking.

 

Maggie’s drinking because she’s scared she’ll never get to tell Alex.

 

―――――

 

It’s six months into the undercover deal that Alex feels confident enough to give them a location she’ll know Lord will be at.

 

His current operation center is an abandoned elementary school near Maggie’s apartment complex, set for demolition in a few months. Out of all the possible covers, it’s a pretty good one.

 

Maggie’s has to ask James to strap in the back of her bulletproof vest tightly before it hits her she’s going to see Alex for the first time in half a year. Has it really been that long, or short? Time passes oddly when Alex isn’t around; nothing but the usual 99 shenanigans have occurred since Alex was gone, so it feels like a second, but every night Maggie has to lay in bed wondering if she’s okay and what Maggie could’ve possible done to change things feels like a year.

 

The drive to the school is silent, everyone worried in the anticipation of seeing Alex again. Kara reaches over and squeezes Maggie’s thigh comfortingly.

 

They’re rarely ever on the same side, but they’ll always be on Alex’s, and after their public argument in the bullpen, they both agreed that the most important thing was hoping Alex would return safely.

 

When they get a block away to keep it lowkey, James says the first thing that’s been said in the decoy delivery van sinc everyone stepped in. “We’re going to split up when we get in there, but if you see Lord, you radio in everyone. Do _not_ try and fight him alone. Understand?”

 

Maggie, Winn, and Kara, and three other officers nod in confirmation. The seven of them are the A team, a B team following close behind.

 

The abandoned school gives off an incredibly eerie feeling. Maggie, as she slowly walks through the empty hallways, trigger finger poised, ponders on if Lord did that on purpose. There’s black mold in the cracks of the walls and the spaces that join the wall and floor. The ceiling tiles are crumbling, and the multi-colored floor tiles show white dust where they’ve fallen. Maggie doesn’t even want to guess what would come from venturing into the bathroom, and it makes her gut twist because she’s been to several elementary schools still open in the inner city that look just like this, or even worse.

 

Education is screwed.

 

She’s several twists and turns deep into the building when she hears the echoes of gunshots and fighting. Her impulse is telling her to go towards the sound and help whoever found Lord’s security, but she hears the sound of boots against tile and instead jiggles and opens the first door that isn’t locked, a one-toilet faculty restroom.

 

When she shuts the door, backs up, and turns around, she’s face to face with Alex Danvers.

 

“Alex?” she whispers, and the taller woman’s eyes widen before the clicking of a gun’s safety turning off echoes through the empty room.

 

“I fucking knew it,” a voice says, and a stall door opens to reveal Maxwell Lord, gun in hand, and he points it at Maggie and Alex interchangeably as he talks. “I’m not an idiot as you cops may like to think. I know an undercover agent when I see one. Brian, that was different. He was a civilian. But Sam… well, Alex, I guess, you? I could tell you were trained from the second your sorry ass walked in.”

 

Maggie immediately points her own gun at Lord. “Drop the weapon.”

 

“Oh, that’s not how this works,” Lord says, and he points the gun at Alex. “In fact…” He takes Alex with his free arm and holds her close enough to put the gun to her temple. “If you even think of moving your finger, this traitor gets lead in her brain.”

 

Maggie Sawyer, National City Police Detective, has seen a lot of shit. She’s faced Death head on, physically brawled with aliens thrice her size without a second thought. But seeing Alex with a revolver to her head?

 

She can feel the slightest tremble in her grip, and she prays that Lord can’t see it.

 

“Maggie,” Alex says, “don’t listen to him. Incapacitate him.”

 

“I want you,” Lord orders, “to take that walkie talkie out of your belt, and drop it to the floor.” He shoves his revolver further into Alex’s skin, as if there was any space left between to begin with. “Now.”

 

Maggie shakily, but sternly, takes the clip-on walkie talkie from her belt and holds it up. “This?”

 

“I don’t think now is the time to be a smart ass.”

 

Maggie drops it to the floor, and even kicks it to the side.

 

“Now I want you to lock the door.”

 

Maggie follows his orders.

 

“ _Maggie_ ,” Alex repeats, a warning tone. “Seriously. Don’t let him get away because of me.”

 

“Look, Alex, I…” Maggie takes a deep breath. “I know that I was selfish before you left, okay? I was _so_ selfish. And I promise, that after this, I’ll do my best to never be selfish again. But right now? I’m going to do what has the most possibility of bringing you back alive, and that means doing what I want instead of what you want. I’m sorry.”

 

“He’ll just kill me and you and everyone else after he gets away!” Alex yells, and she jostles at the intensity of her voice, which only makes Lord hold her more tightly.

 

“He won’t,” Maggie says, and she’s sure of it.

 

“Maggie, is it?” The way Maxwell Lord says her name makes her blood turn to ice in her veins. “We’re in a bathroom, all alone, and I have a gun pointed on, well, by the way you’re looking at each other, a gun pointed on someone pretty close to you. So why not just drop your weapon?”

 

“I’ll do anything _but_ that,” Maggie says, and she’s glad Lord mentioned they were in a bathroom. So, so glad.

 

She just needs to stall for a few more minutes. Talk down Lord, argue with Alex (and she hates it, hates having to use Alex like that), but when there’s a bang on the door and James’s loud voice shouting, “Maxwell Lord, surrender!”, she smirks.

 

Lord, on the other hand, just gets angrier. “What the fuck did you do?!” When Maggie doesn’t answer, his eyes are drawn to the walkie talkie sitting on the floor, under the sinks. “You pressed the call button.” Not a question, but a statement.

 

Maggie doesn’t give a direct answer, instead choosing to say, “Listen to the men outside and lower your weapon. You have no other option. Your team and your operation has been taken down.”

 

“You really think I’m going to surrender to you alien apologists so easily?” Lord asks. “No. I don’t go down without a fight.”

 

He swivels his gun so it’s pointed right at Maggie’s head―

 

And his finger―

 

The trigger―

 

Maggie spots it, but she’s not fast enough― Alex _is_ ―

 

All of a sudden, Alex smacks the gun away from Lord’s hand, and Maggie shoots him once, twice, in the legs, once, on his right shoulder, once, in his abdomen. It doesn’t even register that she’s shot him so many times, that he’s down, that he’ll probably bleed out before they get to the hospital, that if he’s lucky enough to live, he’ll be spending the rest of his life behind bars.

 

Because Alex was quick enough to make sure the gun wasn’t aimed at Maggie’s head, but she wasn’t quick enough to make sure it didn’t go off.

 

There’s two― _two_ ― bullets somewhere buried under Alex’s collarbone, and Maggie can’t even run, her knees buckle beneath her and she half skids, half drags herself to where Alex is still, in shock, and holding a bloody hand she’d just touched to herself to her face as if she hasn’t yet realized the blood is hers.

 

“Alex,” Maggie says, her throat tingling with the tears she knows are starting to fall, and she’s never wished to hold Alex more in this moment than she has since the day she walked into the bullpen for the first time, but she knows Alex needs to move as little as possible, “please lay down. Don’t exert your muscles like that. Lay down.”

 

Alex does as told almost immediately, coughing on her way down. She slurs out a, “... Sorry.”

 

“No, don’t be, don’t be, fucking hell, Alex.” Maggie hovers over Alex, taking pieces of her hair that were pinned to her face from blood and sweat and pulling them back. There’s something on Alex’s face and… shit, are these ceilings so bad something is leaking? God no, Maggie’s just crying. Okay. “Alex, I…” She inhales. “I have to tell you I―”

 

Alex weakly puts a finger on Maggie’s lips. “No. Not now. Tell me… when… wake up.”

 

She goes limp, and Maggie feels her whole world turn black.

 

She hears the door bust open, shouting, she feels herself being taken away, she hears a hoarse voice yelling, “Somebody get an ambulance! _Get an ambulance!"_ ―it’s her, Maggie realizes, it must be, because that  _sounds_ like her, and that’s the last she remembers before she’s being shipped off back to the precinct.

 

―――――

 

It takes six hours for Maggie to be written down as a witness and fill out all the paperwork that has to do with a raid, an arrest, discharging a weapon. It turns into even more paperwork when Lord flatlines during surgery, and doesn’t come back.

 

Maggie doesn’t feel particularly bitter about that fact, but six hours is a long time. She’s pretty sure all the times she asked to leave combined― please, I’ve told you all I can, I’ve filled out all you’ve asked me to, my best friend is the officer that got shot _and I want to go visit her_ ― would be at least one of those hours.

 

When they finally dismiss her, it’s dawn. The sun is rising, and Maggie had almost expected it to stay dark. How is the sun able to come up, how is the Earth able to spin, when Alex is probably lying in surgery and fighting for her life.

 

She doesn’t get it.

 

Snapping her helmet on, Maggie hops on her bike and guns it to the hospital. She definitely hasn’t slept in close to 24 hours, but the adrenaline of needing to get as close to Alex as possible overrides any exhaustion coursing through her body, and she just pressed the gas pedal harder.

 

―――――

 

When Maggie runs, almost slips, into the waiting room, she sees James sitting in one of the chairs, and he immediately comes over to Maggie when he sees her, hugging her tightly and letting her fist his shirt as tears threatened to come out once more.

 

“Lucy and Winn are forcing Kara to eat while Alex is still in and recovering from surgery,” he explains, and damn, Maggie doesn’t think she’s ever heard of a situation where someone had to ask Kara to put food in her mouth. “You’re coming, too.”

 

“Not hungry,” she mumbles, weakly, and to no avail, because James leads her to the hospital cafeteria, anyway.

 

After eating something, which, Maggie doesn’t even fully remember what it was, just eating so everyone would get off her back, she finds herself being led to the waiting room closest to Alex’s room, her and Kara sitting beside each other.

 

It’s awkward. They started off bumping elbows trying to use the same siderest and ended up not using it at all.

 

“You guys look exhausted,” Lucy says. “Everyone else here has gone to sleep for at least a few hours.”

 

“Don’t care,” Maggie says right when Kara says, “I can’t sleep.”

 

“When Alex wakes up, I’ll wake you both if you’re not already awake by then, okay?”

 

“When she’s out of surgery and moved to her room,” Maggie corrects, and Kara nods.

 

Lucy sighs. “Fine. Just, please, get some rest.”

 

She ends up having to snap a picture of Maggie falling asleep in the crook of Kara’s neck and Kara resting on the crown of Maggie’s head. A terrible reason as to why they’re in that position, but she knows Alex will enjoy it.

 

―――――

 

For the next two days, Maggie and Kara eat very little, sleep very little, and worry very much. Alex is now sleeping, and has been since she was out of surgery. A success. Lucy, Winn, or James are always there with them, making sure they don’t do anything too out of hand.

 

Maggie ends up passing out for an hour or two, and when she wakes up, Kara isn’t beside her, and most of the precinct has reappeared.

 

“Is Kara in there?” she asks. “What happened?”

 

“Alex woke up,” James says.

 

“You didn’t _tell_ me?”

 

“Only one person was allowed in,” James explains, “and it was only about half an hour ago. Kara told her you were sleeping, and she asked that you stay that way.”

 

Maggie droops, sinking in her seat, when Kara walks out.

 

“Is she okay?” Maggie blurts, and Kara nods.

 

“She’s okay, kinda drugged up. I still chewed her out, though. You can go in, if you want.”

 

Maggie looks back at the group before answering. “I don’t know, everyone else is here too, and I―”

 

“You’re gonna burst a vessel if anyone else goes in before you,” Lucy says. “Seriously, we don’t mind.”

 

Henshaw walks up to Maggie. “We don’t blame you for wanting to go in,” he says, and then, in a quieter voice, adds, “I could quite literally hear your thoughts from a quarter mile away, even when you were sleeping. Go.”

 

“Thank you guys,” Maggie says, and walks as fast as she can without running into the room. When she goes in, Alex is sleepily watching whatever news channel is on the television. Maggie smiles fondly, but when Alex turns around at her new visitor, Maggie breaks.

 

“What were you thinking?” she all but yells.

 

“I _just_ got yelled at by Kara,” Alex whines, and her voice is a little slow, but not quite slurred, due to medication.

 

“Too bad. You think you can do something as stupid as take a _bullet_ for me and expect not to hear about it? I could’ve easily ducked, or, I don’t know, done something so neither of us ended up getting shot in the process.”

 

“I wasn’t thinking,” Alex says, eyes downcast, “but I’m not going to apologize for saving you. Never.”

 

“No,” Maggie agrees, inching closer to the bed, scraping a chair across stark white tile to sit. “You aren’t.”

 

“I was just… scared. Lord had the gun pointed at you, and I saw the muscle in his finger twitch…”

 

“I saw it too.”

 

“... so I tried to disarm him as quickly has I could.”

 

“Five inches, Alex.” Maggie breathes in. “Three inches and either bullet could have pierced your heart. Sure, it was on your shoulder, but then I do the math, and… Three inches, and you would’ve died. I had to be interrogated on what happened and fill out paperwork because I was the only cop there to see the whole scene of you getting shot while you were in surgery. I had to see your unconscious body lifted into an ambulance and I wasn’t allowed to follow.”

 

“I’m sorry.” It’s said as a whisper.

 

Maggie continues, her voice cracking. “Did you think I wanted that to be the last time I saw you? I didn’t even get the chance… I didn’t even get the chance to say…”

 

“Say what?” Alex says, and Maggie wonders if she’s asking because she wants to hear Maggie say it, or she genuinely doesn’t remember the small conversation they had before she’d passed out.

 

“You were right. I love you so, so much. I was going to say it, back in that school, but I get why you didn’t want to hear it.” Alex nods. “You didn’t want it to feel like the ending. I’m here to tell you it’s just the beginning.” Maggie’s eyes are pricking, her vision swimming, and she has to wipe her eyes. “Yeah, I’m fucking _terrified_ of how I feel. Kara yelled about it and everyone got to hear about how I was a huge asshole and coward and basically abandoned you after a one night stand. And Alex, _none_ of that is your fault. You opened yourself up, and… I got scared and did the first thing I could think of: rejection. You didn’t deserve it, especially because I didn’t even believe it myself.

 

But I realized I was even more terrified of you dying and not knowing how I actually felt. I like you, a lot, you know? You’re so beautiful, and intelligent, and sometimes we’re so in sync I truly wonder if some higher being is tinkering with us… Screw being the last lesbians on Earth shit, okay? It’s stupid and it’s not true, it hasn’t been for a long time for me. I would fight every other lesbian on this godforsaken planet if it just meant one honest-to-god date with you, because I _want_ to go on dates with you. I want to be your girlfriend and I want you to be _my_ girlfriend, I want to be that badass cop couple everyone else in National City is jealous of, I want to get a dog and everyone bets on what we’ll name it but they’re all wrong because you have the weirdest taste in names I’ve ever seen in a human being. I want to eat junk food and watch movies like we always do except I get to spoon you and you get to fall asleep in my arms while I play with your hair. I want to argue about how to place dishes in the dishwasher and how to fold towels and how to arrange the spices in the cabinet. I want to do _everything_ with you.”

 

“Yeah?” Alex’s eyes are shining, and there’s a quiet laughter in the undertone of her words. “Girlfriend? Date?”

 

“Yeah, girlfriend, date, the whole shabang.” Alex smiles, pretty widely for someone who’s recently woken up from surgery and is on a buttload of pain medication, and she lifts the arm not connected to any IVs and makes a ‘gimme’ motion. “What, Alex? What do you need?”

 

“I… wanna see your phone.”

 

“For the time?” Maggie glances at the clock at the front of the room. “It’s about 11 in the morning.”

 

“No.” Alex pouts, shakes her head. “Lock screen.”

 

“Oh.” Maggie gets her phone out of her back pocket and holds it up, the screen facing Alex, before clicking her lock button. The picture was of her and Alex and Pride, wearing the same flag as a cape and smiling.

 

“Changed it,” she says.

 

“Yeah, I changed it while you were gone.”

 

“Even though… we were fighting.”

 

“Of course.” Maggie’s face softens. “I should’ve… I should’ve realized the extent and nature of my feelings when I kept you as my screen instead of the women I’d been dating. Because society has deemed you’re supposed to put the thing most important to you as your lock screen, and I’ve never thought about it being anything but you.”

 

Alex’s face screws up, and Maggie asks, “What’s wrong? Was that a bad thing to say?”

 

“No, it was cute, it was all amazing, actually, I just.” Alex blushes. “I need to use the bathroom. Help me up?”

 

As Maggie helps Alex walk across the room after doing her business, Alex’s foot catches on a wire connected to her mobile IV stand and she falls. Maggie immediately catches her in her arms before Alex can fall onto the floor and raises her eyebrows in confusion as Alex starts laughing. “You okay?”

 

“I…” Alex is wheezing. “I _fell_ for you.”

 

And Maggie sighs, because, of course she did.

 

“I’m going to pretend you said that because you’re on drugs and not because my girlfriend has a lame sense of humor.” Alex preens at the word _girlfriend_ and Maggie tries not to preen at Alex’s preening, proud of slipping that in there, as she helps Alex under the covers. “For what it’s worth, though? You’re not the only one.”

 

―――――

 

When they get married, Maggie changes her lock screen, her desktop screen, every social media profile she owns, and she even puts a physical copy on the mantle of the fireplace of one picture: They’re on the dance floor, and Maggie’s back is to the photographer, but Alex has her arms draped over Maggie’s neck and her chin is resting on the crown of Maggie’s head ( _stupid heels_ ). Her eyes are closed and she’s wearing one of the most blissful looks on her face that Maggie has seen, like she’s just walked straight into paradise.

 

The secret, Maggie thinks, is that Alex has been the paradise all along.

**Author's Note:**

> if you have anything you wanna talk about, contact me on tumblr (sapphics) and twitter (slowburnsanvers)!!! i'd love to hear!!!


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